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Presented  to  the 
LIBRARY  of  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO 

h 

THE  ESTATE  OF  THE  LATE 
COL.  R.  S.  TIMMIS,  D.S.O. 


CHARTERHOUSE   IN   LONDON 


CHARTERHOUSE 
IN     LONDON 


MONASTERY,  MANSION,  HOSPITAL, 
SCHOOL 


BY   GERALD    S.    DA  VIES,    M.A. 


MASTER    OF     CHARTERHOUSE 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


LONDON 

JOHN   MURRAY,  ALBEMARLE  STREET,  W. 

1921 


(All  rights  reierved) 


DEDICATED 

TO  ALL 

WHO 
BEAR  OR  WHO  HONOUR 

THE  NAME 

CARTHUSIAN 


PREFACE 

I  UNDERTOOK  this  history  at  the  expressed  wish  of  some 
Carthusians  in  the  year  of  the  Tercentenary  of  Thomas 
Sutton's  Foundation,  1911.  While  doing  so  I  knew  well 
that  there  are  many  living  Carthusians  who,  by  reason 
of  their  literary  capacity,  are  far  more  fitted  for  the  task. 
But  I  also  could  not  but  know  that  a  combination  of 
opportunities  had  fallen  to  me  which  can  never  again 
happen  to  any  man  living  or  to  come.  These  opportunities 
are  the  result  of  accident.  I  can  claim  no  credit  for  them, 
but  rather  I  recognise  in  them  a  duty  which  they  impose 
upon  me.  For  I  was  for  nine  years  a  Foundation  Scholar 
in  London,  during  which  time  I  developed  a  love  for  the 
place  and  a  zeal  (not  according  to  knowledge)  for  its  tradi- 
tions and  antiquities.  I  was  afterwards  for  nearly  thirty- 
three  years  on  the  staff  of  the  school  at  Godalming,  during 
which  time  I  was  in  constant  touch  with  my  friend,  the 
Reverend  Henry  V.  Le  Bas,  Preacher  of  Sutton's  Hospital, 
who  never  failed  to  communicate  to  me  every  step  by  which 
he  made  clearer  the  topography  of  the  monastery  and  of 
the  mansion.  He  was,  and  I  take  this  opportunity  of 
recording  my  gratitude,  my  first  trainer  in  a  complicated 
study.  Lastly,  fortune  has  ordained  that  I  should  return 
to  the  home  of  my  boyhood,  as  Master  of  Charterhouse,  a 
post  which  naturally  opens  to  me  not  a  few  doors  which 
are  closed  to  most  others.  These  combined  opportunities, 
stretching  over  the  fifty-eight  years  of  my  Carthusian  days, 
have  enabled  me  to  collect  very  much  information,  which 
from  time  to  time  has  been  revised,  recast,  verified,  rejected, 
till  the  notebooks  have  swelled  to  many  volumes.  These 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

notes  would  be  almost  unintelligible,  even  if  legible,  to 
any  other  but  myself.  And  I  have  therefore  accepted 
the  duty  of  arranging  them  into  a  coherent  sequence 
while  life  is  left  to  me. 

To  the  advantages  which  I  have  recorded,  and  of 
which  I  fear  I  shall  have  made  but  an  inadequate  use, 
must  be  added  that  of  having  survived  into  a  day  when  the 
unearthing  of  much  entirely  fresh  material  has  enabled 
us  to  explain  much  which  before  was  inexplicable,  and  to 
set  right  a  great  many  errors  into  which  the  earlier  writers, 
for  lack  of  this  material,  inevitably  fell.  It  may  well  be 
that  the  discovery  of  further  material  in  the  Record  Office 
or  elsewhere  will  fill  many  a  gap  which  I  have  had  to  leave, 
and  will  add  my  own  name  to  the  list  of  those  whose 
histories  need  correction.  I  have  made  it  my  endeavour 
to  state  nothing  in  positive  terms  for  which  I  have  not 
found  authority.  It  would  be  impossible  always  to  quote 
that  authority  without  cumbering  the  page  with  footnotes. 
I  have  been  careful  also  to  try  and  give  to  such  words  as 
"  undoubtedly,"  "  probably,"  "  possibly,"  their  exact  value 
in  the  scale,  and  where  mere  suggestion  is  used  to  let  it  be 
clearly  seen  as  such.  I  cannot  hope  that  I  have  fallen 
into  no  errors  of  my  own,  after  correcting  the  errors  of 
those  that  have  gone  before  me.  I  can  only  claim  that  I 
have  taken  pains  to  avoid  them.  In  writing  the  records 
of  a  place  which  in  some  shape  has  touched  history  either 
in  the  lives  which  were  being  lived  within  it,  or  in  the 
lives  of  those  that  went  forth  from  it  on  almost  every  day 
of  its  existence  since  1349,  it  is  inevitable  that  some 
mistakes  will  have  crept  in,  certainly  inevitable  that 
many  and  many  an  interest  should  have  been  left  out. 

I  have  already  expressed  my  debt  to  Mr.  Le  Bas.  I 
owe  cordial  thanks  to  many  another.  To  Mr.  H.  S.  Wright, 
Assistant  Receiver  of  Charterhouse,  for  help  ungrudgingly 
given  both  in  the  Muniment  Room  and  in  the  Record 
Office.  To  Dom  Laurence  Hendriks,  author  of  the 
London  Charterhouse,  for  many  kindnesses.  To  Father 
P.  N.  Pepin,  the  Prior  of  Charterhouse,  Parkminster,  for  his 
generous  gift  tome  of  the"Disciplina  Ordinis  Carthusiensis." 


PREFACE  ix 

To  Mr.  H.  M.  Underdown  (O.C.)  and  to  Sir  William  St. 
John  Hope  for  much  useful  guidance,  and  to  many  others 
who  at  home  or  abroad  have  in  this  way  or  in  that  given 
me  the  help  without  which  this  book  would  have  been 
impossible. 


GERALD  S.  DA  VIES. 


THE  MASTER'S  LODGE, 

CHARTERHOUSE,  LONDON 
July,  1914. 


Postscript. — The  gap  between  the  date  of  the  preface 
(1914)  and  the  date  of  issue  (1921)  needs  no  explanation. 

September,  1921. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

BIBLIOGRAPHY xvii 

I.    THE  ORIGINAL  SITE 1 

II.    PABDON  CHUBCHYABD   ........  4 

III.  NEW  CHURCHE  HAWE  (THE  MONASTERY)      ....  8 

IV.  SIB  WALTER  DE  MANNY — BISHOP  MICHAEL  DE  NOBTHBURGH  18 
V.    ST.  BRUNO  AND  THE  CARTHUSIAN  ORDER      ....  26 

VI.    THE  CABTHUSIAN  RULE  AND  CABTHUSIAN  MONASTERIES         .  34 

VII.    THE  STORY  OF  OUR  MONASTERY  FROM  1371  ....  54 

VIII.    THE  MONASTERY  IN  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY      ...  75 

IX.    THE  SUPPRESSION 87 

X.    THE  LAST  YEARS  OF  THE  MONASTERY 99 

XI.    "  QUOMODO  SEDET  SOLA  CIVITAS  " 106 

XII.    THE  MANSION  PERIOD — EDWARD,  LORD  NORTH— THE  DUKE 

OF  NORTHUMBERLAND — LORD  NORTH,  1545-64        .        .  114 

XIII.  HOWARD  HOUSE — THE  FOURTH  DUKE  OF  NOBFOLK      .        .  123 

XIV.  HOWABD   HOUSE   AND  THE   RlDOLFI  PLOT         ....  133 

XV.    HOWABD  HOUSE  UNDER  PHILIP  EABL  OF  ARUNDEL       .        .  143 

XVI.    HOWARD  HOUSE  UNDEB  LORD  THOMAS  HOWARD,  EABL  OF 

SUFFOLK,  1601-11 155 

XVII.    THE   PABBIC    OF   THE    MANSION  UNDEB  NOBTH,  NORTHUM- 
BERLAND, AND  NORFOLK 161 

XVIII.    THOMAS  BUTTON 168 

XIX.    THE  IMMEDIATE  SEQUEL  TO  THE  FOUNDER'S  WILL       .        .  194 

XX.    THE  FOUNDEB'S  TOMB  .  214 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PA.O« 

XXI.  THE  EARLY  DAYS  OF  BUTTON'S  HOSPITAL    ....  223 

XXII.  THK  SCHOOL 247 

XXIII.  RAINE — RUSSELL — THE  MADRAS  oa  BELL  SYSTEM,  1791-1832  262 

XXIV.  SAUNDERS — ELDER  ELWYN — HAIG  BROWN    ....  273 
AFTERMATH  .  282 


APPENDICES 


A.  DETAILS  OF  THE  EXISTING  BUILDINGS  OF  CHARTERHOUSE  (1914)  .    807 

B.  DOCUMENTS  RELATING  TO  THE  MONASTERY 318 

I.  Will  of  Sir  Walter  Lord  of  Manney          .         .         .         .318 

II.    Will  of  Michael  [de    Northburgh],  Bishop    of    London 

(abstract) 319 

III.  Extracts  from  MS.  in  the  Record  Office.    Ghartularies  of 

Charterhouse,  61 820 

IV.  Other  Benefactions  to  the  Monastery       .  .         .     321 

V.  Sir  Robert  Rede's  Chapel  of  St.  Catherine  in  the  Church 

of  the  Monastery 322 

VI.  The  Belongings   of   a  professed  Monk  of  the  London 

Charterhouse,  Jan.  1519-20 823 

VII.    Agreement  between    John    Ffereby  and    the    Prior    of 

Charterhouse  for  the  Water  Supply,  1430  .         .         .     325 

VIII.    Declaration  of  the  Commissioners  at  the  Surrender  of  the 

Monastery,  1537 326 

IX.    Inventory  of  the  effects  in  the  Suppressed  Monastery 

reported  by  William  Daylle  (1538)     .         .         .         .330 

X.    The  MS.  life  of  St.  Hugh,  once  in  the  Monastery  Library 

of  Charterhouse,  London,  by  Adainus  Carthusiensis    .     335 

C.  DOCUMENTS  RELATING  TO  THE  MANSION 337 

I.    License  of  Henry  VIII  to  John  Bridges  and  Thomas 

Hale,  1542 337 

II.  Grant  by  Henry  VIII  to  Sir    Edward    North  of    the 

suppressed  Charterhouse,  1545 337 

III.  Conveyance  of  Charterhouse  from  Sir  Edward  North  to 

the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  1553   .         .         .         .338 

IV.  Grant  of  Charterhouse  from  Queen  Mary  to  North  after 

the  execution  of  Northumberland,  1553      .         .         .     339 

V.    Conveyance  of  Charterhouse  by  Lord  North  to  the  Fourth 

Duke  of  Norfolk,  1565 339 

VI.    Survey  of  Charterhouse  1590  after  the  attainder  of  Philip 

Earl  of  Arundel  in  1589 340 


CONTENTS  xiii 

PAGE 

VII.    Grant  by  Queen    Elizabeth  of   Charterhouse  to    Lord 
Thomas    Howard    of    Walden    [afterwards    Earl    of 

Suffolk]  in  1601 342 

VIII.    Eenewed  Grant  of  the  same  by  James  I  in  1603       .         .  343 

IX.    Extract   of  letters  patent  of  June  22,  1611,  to  Thomas 

Sutton  for  the  Foundation  of  Charterhouse        .         .  343 

X.    Extracts  from  the  Will  of  Thomas  Sutton       .         .         .344 

XI.    Extract  from  the  Account-book  of  Richard  Sutton  .         .  347 

XII.    Estimate  and  Details  of  Founder's  Tomb        .         .         .  347 

D 349 

I.    Masters  of  Button's  Hospital 349 

II.    Preachers  of  Button's  Hospital 349 

III.  Schoolmasters  [Head  Masters] 360 

IV.  Eegistrars     .                                    351 

V.    Governors  of  Charterhouse 351 

VI.    Governing  Body  of  the  School 360 

E.  SOME  DISTINGUISHED  CABTHUSIANS 362 

F.  CABMEN  CABTHUSIANUM 367 

G.  THE  ROLL  OP  HONOUB,  1914-1918 368 

INDEX  441 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAOK 

Howard  House  Pa9ade — Long  Gallery         .        .        .         Frontispiece 

Charter  of  Sir  Walter  de  Manny 12 

Fragment  of  Manny's  Tomb  (1372) 18 

Aumbry  in  Monks'  Church 18 

St.  Bruno.    By  Houdon 23 

A  Cottage  Cell,  Mount  Grace .34 

A  Cell  Door,  Mount  Grace 34 

A  Lay  Brother  (Gonversus),  Miraflores 48 

A  Worker  (Donatus),  Miraflores 48 

Cell  Door  of  B  Cell  (1371) 57 

Cell  Door :  East  Side  of  Great  Cloister  (1371-1900)       ....  57 

Site  of  the  Monks'  Burial  Ground 60 

Plan  of  Water  Supply  (c.  1435) :  Great  Cloister 74 

Washhouse  or  Lavendry  Court,  West  Wall 84 

The  Oak  Door  (c.  1512).    The  Norfolk  Lions  (1565-71)           ...  96 
The  Chapel  (the  Right  Aisle  is  the  Monks'  Church)       .         .         .         .112 

The  Great  Hall 126 

Norfolk's  Arcade  (Cloisters) 130 

Washhouse  or  Lavendry  Court  (Lay  Brothers'  Quarters)        .         .         .  136 

The  Great  Staircase  (1565-70) 138 

The  Great  Hall,  from  Master's  Court 148 

General  Plan  of  Howard  House 160 

Portrait  of  Thomas  Sutton 170 

Berwick  Bridge 176 

Berwick  Ramparts       ..........  176 

Lady  de  Manny  (Margaret  Mareschall) 186 

Elizabeth  Sutton 186 

Brothers'  Library  (Gownboy  Dining  Hall) 210 


xvi  LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

Stools  in  Brothers'  Library  (c.  1500) 210 

The  Founder's  Tomb  (Nicholas  Stone) 214 

Chapel  Tower,  from  Master's  Lodge 230 

The  Great  Chamber  (Governors'  Room) 238 

Costume  of  early  Gownboys,  Seventeenth  Century         ....  246 

Costume  of  a  Brother,  Twentieth  Century 246 

Entrance  to  Chapel 260 

Pundator  Noster 304 

Founder's  Tomb  (Detail),  1615 304 

Elevation  Plan  (1755) .         .306 

Lay  Brothers'  Entrance  to  Church 308 

Great  Hall,  West  End 308 

Slype  from  Lavendry  (Washhouse)  Court 314 

Passage  from  Master's  Court 314 

The  Pensioners'  Court  (1826-30) .        .316 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

OF  THE  CHIEF  BOOKS  AND  MSS.  RELATING 
TO  CHARTERHOUSE 


ADAM  CARTHUSIENSIS.  The  Life  of  St.  Hugh.  A  MS.  once  in  the  library 
of  the  Monastery.  Given  to  Charterhouse  by  Bernard  Quaritoh,  O.C., 
in  1913  (see  Appendix  B,  X). 

BABBETT,  C.  B.  B.,  with  a  Preface  by  GEOBGE  E.  SMYTHE.  Charterhouse 
in  Pen  and  Ink,  1611-1895.  London,  1895. 

BEABCROFT,  PHILIP,  D.D.,  Preacher  and  Master  of  Charterhouse.  An 
Historical  Account  of  Thomas  Sutton  and  his  Foundation  in  Charter- 
house. London,  1737. 

Blue  Books  (Charterhouse  School  Lists.  Results  of  General  Examinations : 
Scholarships,  etc.,  beginning  1814). 

BOWER-MABSH,  B.A.,  and  P.  A.  CRISP,  P.S.A.  Alumni  Carthusiani.  A 
Record  of  the  Foundation  Scholars  of  Charterhouse  from  1614  to  1872. 
Privately  printed,  1613. 

BBOWN,  JOSEPH.  The  tryall  of  Thomas  Duke  of  Norfolk  by  his  peers  for 
High  Treason  against  the  Queen,  for  attempting  to  marry  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots  without  the  consent  of  the  said  Queen  Elizabeth.  London,  1709. 

BULLOCK,  ALBERT  EDWARD.  Some  Sculptural  Works  by  Nicholas  Stone, 
Statuary,  A.D.  1586-1647.  B.  T.  Batsford  :  London,  1908. 

CECIL,  WILLIAM,  LORD  BUBGHLEY.  A  collection  of  State  Papers  relating  to 
affairs  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  Edited  by  William  Murdin. 
London,  1759. 

Calendarium  Botulorum.    MSS.  Public  Record  Office. 

Carthusian,  The.  [1st  Series.]  A  Miscellany  in  Prose  and  Verse.  [The 
School  Journal.]  2  vols.  London,  1839. 

Carthusian,  The.    [2nd  Series.]    School  Journal  from  1871.    Godalming. 

CHAMPNEYS,  BASIL.  Two  Articles  in  Architectural  Review,  Vols.  X.f  XI. 
1891-2. 

Chartularies  of  Charterhouse.    MSS.  in  Public  Record  Office. 

CHAUNCY,  DOM  MAURICE.  A  professed  member  of  the  London  Charterhouse. 
Translated  into  English  from  the  Latin.  Burns  and  Gates :  London, 
1890.  First  Edition  of  the  same  in  Latin  about  1546. 

xvii  B 


xviii  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

CONDEB,  EDWABD.  Records  of  the  Hole  Crafte  and  Fellowship  of  Masonry : 
with  a  chronicle  of  the  Worshipful  Company  of  the  Masons  of  the  City 
of  London.  Sonnenschein :  London,  1894. 

CBIBP,  P.  A.,  F.S.A.    See  BOWER-MARSH. 

DAYLLE,  WILLIAM.  Caretaker  of  the  suppressed  Monastery,  1537.  In- 
ventory of  goods  received  in  charge.  State  Papers.  MSS.  Domestic. 

80  Henry  VIII  g^j.    Public  Record  Office. 

DOBEAU,  DOM  VICTOB  MARIE,  Prieur  de  la  Chartreuse  de  Saint  Hugues 
a  Parkminster.  Henri  VII  et  les  Martyrs  de  la  Chartreuse  de  Londres. 
Paris,  1890. 

DUGDALE,  SIB  WILLIAM.    History  of  St.  Paul's.    London,  1658. 
Monasticon  Anglicanum.    London,  1693. 

EABDLEY-WILMOT,  E.  P.,  and  STBEATFIELD,  E.  C.  Charterhouse  Old  and 
New,  with  four  etchings  by  D.  Y.  Cameron.  London,  1895. 

FBOUDE,  JAMES  ANTONY,  M.A.  History  of  England  from  the  Fall  of  Wolsey 
to  the  Spanish  Armada.  London,  1900. 

GASQUET,  FRANCIS  AIDAN,  Abbot  and  Cardinal. 

(a)  English  Monastic  Life.     Methuen :  London,  1904. 

(b)  Henry  VIII  and  the  Monasteries.      George  Bell  &  Sons :  London, 

1900. 

Greyfriar,  The.  The  Illustrated  School  Journal  from  August,  1884. 
Godalming. 

Greyfriars,  Papers  from.    The  School  Journal,  1860-1861.    London. 

GUIGO,  DOM,  Prior  of  La  Grande  Chartreuse.  Statuta  Ordinis  Cartusiensia 
Jo :  Amorbach.  Basle,  1510. 

HAIG-BBOWN,  WILLIAM,  LL.D.,  Head  Master  of  Charterhouse,  Master  of 
Button's  Hospital.  Charterhouse  Past  and  Present.  Godalming,  1879. 

HAIG-BBOWN,  WILLIAM,  H.  of  Charterhouse,  written  by  some  of  his  pupils. 
Edited  by  Harold  Haig-Brown.  London,  1908. 

HALE,  WILLIAM  HALE,  M.A.,  Archdeacon  of  London,  Preacher  and  Master 
of  Button's  Hospital.  Article  in  The  Carthusian,  1839. 

HENDRIKS,  DOM  LAURENCE,  Monk  of  St.  Hugh's,  Parkminster.  The  London 
Charterhouse.  London,  1889. 

HEBNE,  SAMUEL.  Domus  Carthusiana,  or  an  Account  of  the  Noble  Founda- 
tion of  the  Charterhouse,  near  Smithfield,  in  London.  London,  1677. 

HOPE,  W.  H.  ST.  JOHN,  M.A.  Mount  Grace  Priory.  Yorkshire  Archaeological 
Society,  Vol.  XVIII. 

LE  BAS,  REV.  HENBY,  M.A.,  Preacher  of  the  Charterhouse.  London.  The 
Founding  of  the  Carthusian  Order.  Article  on  Mount  Grace  Priory, 
Yorkshire  Archceological  Society,  Vol.  XVIII. 

LEFEBVRE,  L'ABBE  F.  A.  Saint  Bruno  et  L'ordre  des  Chartreux.  Paris, 
1883. 

MACAULAY,  LORD.  History  of  England  from  the  Accession  of  James  II. 
Edited  by  C.  H.  Firth.  London,  1913. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  xix 

MACHLYN,  HENRY,  Citizen  and  Merchant  Taylor  of  London.  Diary  from 
1550  to  1563.  Edited  by  John  Gough  Nichols.  London,  1848. 

LB  MASSON,  INNOCENTIO.  Disciplina  ordinis  Cartusiensis,  printed  at  the 
Carthusian  Monastery  at  Montreuil-Sur-Mer,  1894.  [The  Statutes  of 
Guigo  (g.v.)  with  copious  notes  and  comments  by  I.  Le  Masson.] 

Minutes  of  the  Governors  of  Charterhouse  from  1614.  MS.  in  Charterhouse 
Muniment  Boom. 

MS.  relating  to  Charterhouse.  Carta  Walter!  Domini  de  Manny  Fundatori 
Novae  Domus  Salutationis,  Matris  Dei,  etc.,  1371.  Charterhouse  Muni- 
ment Room. 

MS.  relating  to  the  Foundation  of  the  Monastery  and  to  its  history  up  to 
circa  1480  in  the  Public  Record  Office  [referred  to  throughout  this  book 
as  M.S.M.I.  =  MS  Monachi  ignoti]. 

National  Biography,  Dictionary  of  (2nd  Series,  1908). 

NORFOLK.  The  Lives  of  Philip  Howard,  Earl  of  Arundel,  and  of  Anne  Davies 
his  wife.  Edited  from  the  original  MS.  by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  Earl 
Marshal.  London,  1857. 

NORTH,  EDWARD,  Fourth  Baron.  Some  Notes  concerning  the  Life  of  Edward 
North  (First  Baron).  London,  1682. 

PARISH,  REV.  W.  D.    List  of  Carthusians,  1800-1879.    Lewes,  1879. 

ROPER,  WILLIAM  JOHN  DOFF.  Chronicles  of  Charterhouse  by  a  Carthusian. 
G.  Bell :  London,  1847. 

SHARPE,  REGINALD  R.,  D.C.L.,  Editor.  Calendar  of  Wills  proved  and 
enrolled  in  the  Court  of  Hustings.  London,  1889. 

SMYTHE,  GEORGE  E.     See  BARRETT. 

SMYTHE,  ROBERT.  Historical  Account  of  Charterhouse  by  a  Carthusian. 
London,  1908.  [With  many  transcripts  from  original  documents  in 
the  Appendices.] 

STOW,  JOHN.  Survey  of  London,  reprinted  from  the  text  of  1605.  Edited 
by  C.  L.  Kingford.  2  Vols.  Oxford,  1908. 

STHEATFIELD,  E.  C.    See  EABDLEY-WILMOT. 

STRTPE,  JOHN.  Annals  of  the  Reformation.  Reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 
London,  1709. 

TAYLOR,  WILLIAM  F.  The  Charterhouse  of  London.  London  and  New 
York,  1912. 

TOD,  ALEXANDER  HAY,  M.A.    Charterhouse.    G.  Bell :  London,  1900. 


CHARTERHOUSE    IN 
LONDON 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  ORIGINAL  SITE 

IN  the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  ground 
which  Charterhouse  afterwards  covered  was  open  space, 
regarded  by  the  populace  of  London  as  common  land. 
The  distance  in  a  straight  line  from  the  Gatehouse  or 
Porter's  Lodge  to  the  nearest  point  of  the  City  wall,  near 
Christchurch,  was  a  short  half-mile.  Between  these  two 
points,  a  little  to  the  west,  lay  the  Priory  and  Hospital 
of  St.  Bartholomew  founded  by  Rahere,  1123  ;  while  to 
the  north-west,  and  scarcely  a  long  stone's  throw  from 
what  was  to  be  the  Charterhouse  boundary,  lay  the  Priory 
of  the  Knights  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem,  founded  in  1100. 
Few  other  buildings  of  a  permanent  nature  as  yet  existed 
outside  the  walls,  but  hard  up  against  the  Church  of 
St.  Bartholomew  were  clustered  the  booths  and  stores  of 
Cloth  Fair,  which  flourished  under  a  monopoly  granted 
by  Henry  II  to  the  Florentine  Arte  di  Calimala — the 
Guild  of  the  Clothdressers  and  Dyers.  Here  every  two 
years  during  several  centuries  was  held  the  great  fair 
where  the  matchless  dyes  of  Florence  were  sold  for  English 
use.  The  open  space  in  front  of  St.  Bartholomew,  known 
as  the  Smoothfield  (Smithfield),  and,  indeed,  the  adjoining 
wastes  and  meadows,  were  the  unclaimed  playing  fields 
of  the  already  overcrowded  yet  small  city.  The  lands 
towards  the  north  had  long  been  known  as  No-man's 
land,  and  appear  in  Domesday  book  as  Naneman's  land 

1 


2  THE  ORIGINAL  SITE 

with  the  value  of  5  shillings  payable  to  William,  as  once  to 
Edward  the  Confessor.     Here  were  held  tournaments — 
none  more  notable  than  that  of  1389.     We  are  told  how 
the  ponds,  Horsepond,  Todwell,  Loderswell,  Foxwell,  etc., 
now  filled  in,  were  used  for  watering  the  horses  after  the 
jousts.     Horse  races,  foot  races,  games  such  as  quintan 
and  bowls,  were  played  here.     It  was  the  resort  also  of 
horsedealers   and   copers.     And   the   Smithfield   Elms   or 
Gallows  served  as  the  place  of  execution  for  the  city. 
More  to  the  north  towards  Iseldon  (Islington)  the  land, 
full  of  natural  springs,  became  more  or  less  of  a  fen,  or 
water  meadows.     These   springs   were  destined   to  form 
thereafter,  as  we  shall  see,  the  water  supply  of  Charterhouse. 
In  the  year  1348    bubonic  plague  set  foot  upon  the 
shores  of  England,  not,  indeed,  for  the  first  time,  as  is 
often  said,  for  there  had  been  an  earlier  outbreak  in  the 
sixth  century.     But  this  greater  visitation,  which  came  to 
be  known  in  later  years  as  the  Black  Death,  was  the  first 
of  the  long  and  terrible  series  which  did  not  end  till  300 
years  had  passed.     Starting,  it  is  agreed,  from  Southern 
Russia  near  or  in  the  Crimea,  it  had  already  swept  through 
Southern  Europe.     It  had  been  specially  rampant  in  1348 
at  Avignon,  where  the  papal  court  under  Clement  VI 
suffered  severely.     In  July  or  August,  1348,  it  reached 
Melcombe  Regis   (Weymouth),   in  Dorset,   then  a  great 
seaport,  whither  it  had  been  probably  brought  by  ship 
from  Calais.     A  few  months  served  to  carry  it  through  the 
western  towns,  Bristol,  Gloucester,  Wells.     By  the  end  of 
the  year  it  had  reached  London,  and  by  the  end  of  January, 
1349,  it  had  paralysed  the  great  town.     There  were  at 
that  date  120  parishes  within  the  city  walls,  which  included 
a  space  measuring  about  2200  yards  by  1156  only,  and 
holding,  according  to  the  best  authorities,  a  population 
of  about  45,000.     The  churchyards,  most  of  which  were 
already  some  centuries  old,  were  soon  full  to  overflowing. 
The  dead  lay  in  the  streets  or  were  flung  into  the  river. 
Three  new  burial-grounds  were  hastily  opened.     The  first 
was  near  the  House  of  the  Nuns  of  St.  Clare — a  branch 
of  the  Franciscan  (Minores)    order — near  the  Tower,  in 


THE  ORIGINAL  SITE  3 

what  is  now  known  as  "  the  Minories."  Of  this  graveyard 
we  have  little  record.  It  served  its  purpose  but  made  no 
history.  The  other  two,  Pardon  Churchyard,  in  Clerken- 
well,  and  New  Churche  Hawe,  next  Smithfield  (the  two 
graveyards,  as  we  shall  see,  adjoined),  mark  the  beginnings 
of  the  history  of  Charterhouse. 


CHAPTER  II 

PARDON   CHURCHYARD  * 

THE  plague,  we  are  told,  was  at  its  worst  in  London  from 
about  Candlemas  (Feb.  2)  to  Pentecost,  1349.  In  January 
or  February  Ralph  de  Stratford,  Bishop  of  London  from 
1340  to  1354,  bought  from  the  Knights  Hospitallers  3 
acres  of  the  land  known  as  No-man's  land  lying  "  between 
the  lands  of  the  Abbot  of  Westminster  and  the  lands  of 
the  Priory  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem."  The  position  of  this 
plot  is  well  known  to  us.  It  lies,  though  now  thickly 
covered  with  buildings,  in  the  angle  formed  by  the  crossing 
of  St.  John's  Road  and  Clerkenwell  Road  (Wilderness 
Row).  It  became,  in  1370,  part  of  the  estate  of  the 
Priory  of  Charterhouse,  and,  through  all  the  changes  of 
ownership  which  have  befallen  that  estate,  it  has  never 
been  separated  from  it,  and  at  this  moment  (1913)  it  is 
the  property  of  the  Governors  of  Sutton's  Hospital. 

About  Candlemas,  1349,  then,  Ralph  Stratford  acquired 
this  plot  of  3  acres,  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  Pardon 
Churchyard,  surrounding  it  presently  with  a  brick  wall 
and  building  there  a  chapel,  where  masses  might  be  said 
for  the  souls  of  the  dead.  This  churchyard  f  continued  in 
use  for  two  hundred  years  for  the  burial  of  those  who  died 
of  plague  (from  1348  onwards  till  late  in  the  seventeenth 

*  Our  Pardon  Churchyard  must  not  be  confused  with  the  Pardon 
Churchyard  of  St.  Paul's,  which  contained  a  chapel  founded  by 
Gilbert,  father  of  Thomas  a  Becket,  and  a  cloister  painted  with  the 
Dance  of  Death.  These  were  destroyed  by  the  Protector,  Edward, 
Duke  of  Somerset,  and  the  stones  were  used  in  the  building  of 
Somerset  House.  (Dugdale,  Monast.) 

t  A  rude  figure  of  this  chapel  is  seen  in  the  plan  of  the  water 
supply  to  the  monastery  (date  1431,  preserved  in  the  Muniment 
room  at  Charterhouse). 

4 


century  few  years  passed  without  some  visitation,  more  or 
less  serious),  for  suicides  and  for  executed  criminals.  The 
bodies,  Stow  tells  us,  were  carried  thither  in  a  close  cart 
draped  with  black,  having  a  plain  white  cross  on  it,  and 
with  a  St.  John's  Cross  in  front,  and  with  a  bell  which 
rang  by  the  shaking  of  the  cart  for  the  warning  of  passers 
by.  This  cart  was  known  as  the  Frarie  or  Friary  Cart. 
The  chapel  had  Privilege  of  Sanctuary. 

The  plan  shows  a  small  building  rather  high  for  its 
length  and  breadth,  having  two  tall  gable  ends  and  a 
fleche  bearing  a  large  cross  halfway  along  the  ridge,  with 
a  large  window  at  the  east  end  and  two  similar  windows 
on  the  north.  It  must,  however,  not  be  appealed  to  for 
more  than  a  general  resemblance  of  this  historical  little 
building. 

Pardon  Churchyard  became,  after  the  foundation  of 
the  monastery,  the  freehold  of  the  Carthusian  monks,  and 
so  remained  till  the  suppression.  But,  by  agreement 
between  the  Priories  of  Charterhouse  and  of  St.  John,  it 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  latter,  who  provided  for  its  service 
and  appointed  the  Frairie  Clerk,  or  priest  of  the  chapel. 
Thus,  early  in  the  sixteenth  century,  Sir  Thomas  Docwra, 
Prior  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem,  signs  a  deed  appointing  one 
Travers  to  the  office ;  and  again  in  1522  (Sept.  18)  one 
Corrall  succeeds  him.  This  fact  has  misled  some  writers 
into  the  belief  that  Pardon  Churchyard  belonged  to  St. 
John's  Priory.  But  the  explanation  must  be  sought  in  the 
conditions  of  the  Carthusian  Rule.  A  Carthusian  monk, 
living  in  entire  seclusion  from  the  world,  does  not  undertake 
any  ministry  outside  his  own  cloister,  save  in  exceptional 
instances.  He  does  not  serve  mass,  nor  preach  sermons, 
nor  visit  the  sick,  nor  bury  the  dead,  save  by  special 
exception.  It  would  be  an  unheard-of  thing  for  a  monk 
of  the  order  to  become  the  chaplain  of  a  cemetery  such  as 
Pardon  Churchyard.  That  may  be  said  to  be  the  general 
rule.  But  in  the  case  of  our  Charterhouse  it  had  been 
found  necessary  at  the  visitation  of  1405  *  for  the  visitors 
to  prohibit  the  monks  expressly  from  even  going  to  meet 

*  M.S.M.I. 


6  PARDON  CHURCHYARD 

the  bodies  of  those  who  were  brought  to  the  cemetery  of 
Charterhouse  Yard  (Square)  at  the  outer  gate,  so  strict 
was  the  view  upon  the  point.  Hence,  the  service  of  Pardon 
Churchyard  was,  in  like  manner,  as  that  of  Charterhouse 
Square,  left  to  other  hands. 

After  the  Suppression  Pardon  Churchyard  formed  part 
of  the  grant  of  the  monastery  made  by  the  Crown  to  Sir 
Edward  North  in  1545.  The  latter,  now  Lord  North,  in 
1558,  gave  a  lease  of  it  to  Thomas  Parry  *  and  his  wife, 
and  in  1565  conveyed  it,  with  the  rest  of  the  suppressed 
priory,  to  Thomas  Howard,  Fourth  Duke  of  Norfolk,  from 
whom  it  passed  to  his  son,  Philip,  Earl  of  Arundel.  After 
the  attainder  of  the  latter,  1589,  it  reverted  to  the  Crown, 
and  Queen  Elizabeth  granted  a  lease  of  it  to  Thomas 
Goodison.f  It  was  part  of  the  grant  of  the  Queen  to 
Admiral  Lord  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Suffolk,  in  1596, 
and  again  of  James  I  in  1604  to  the  same  nobleman, 
from  whom  in  turn  it  passed  to  Thomas  Sutton. 

Already  in  1598  Stow  wrote  of  it :  i;  The  chapel  is  now 
enlarged,  and  this  burying  plot  is  become  a  fayre  garden 
retayning  the  old  name."  It  is  noticeable  that  the  price 
put  upon  it  when  North  sold  it  to  Norfolk  was  £320. 
After  Sutton's  day,  while  Clerkenwell  was  still  a  pleasant 
place  of  residence,  it  had  successive  occupants  of  good 
position,  but  it  followed  the  descending  fortunes  of  its 
neighbourhood.  We  learn  from  Maitland  that  in  1739  the 
quoins  of  the  old  chapel  were  still  to  be  seen  in  the  four 
corners  of  the  dwelling-house.  All  trace  of  chapel  and 
churchyard  have  long  ago  disappeared,  though  from  time 
to  time  when  the  ground  has  been  opened,  as  in  1820  and 
1834,  and  probably  whenever  a  foundation  has  been  dug, 
the  evidences  of  its  old  uses  are  brought  to  light.  A  black- 
smith s  shop  and  a  Baptist  Chapel  successively  marked 
the  site  of  Pardon  Chapel,  which  to-day  must  be  sought 
some  100  yards  from  the  west  end  of  Great  Sutton  Street, 
the  sad  and  sorry  thoroughfare  which  now  runs  under 
one  name  from  St.  John's  Street  to  Goswell  Street,  but 
which  formerly  its  eastern  half  bore  the  name  of  Swan 
*  C.H.  Mun  :  B.  f  C.H.  Mun  :  B. 


PARDON  CHURCHYARD  7 

Alley.  It  was  here  that,  according  to  Defoe,  the  later 
plague  of  1666  found  its  worst  material  amongst  the 
wretched  habitations,  forty-three  in  number,  which  had 
grown  up  there  around  Swan  Alley  Market. 

The  very  name  of  Pardon  Churchyard  has  now  passed 
away.  But  long  since  the  eastern  portion  of  Clerkenwell, 
which  runs  along  the  north  wall  of  Charterhouse,  was  still 
allowed  to  retain  its  name  of  Wilderness  Row,  and  to 
remind  us  of  the  time  when  the  white  monks  wandered 
here  in  their  wild  garden  among  their  rose  trees  and  their 
rosemaries.  And  in  the  writer's  own  school  days  the 
western  end  of  Wilderness  Row  narrowed  just  at  its 
juncture  with  St.  John's  Street  to  a  mere  passage,  closed 
by  a  bar,  which  still  bore  the  name  of  Pardon  Passage. 
The  name  is  found  in  Wyld's  Map  of  1825  in  the  British 
Museum.  It  has  seemed  well  to  trace  the  history  of  this 
interesting  appendage  of  Charterhouse,  because  hitherto 
hardly  a  writer  from  Stow  onwards  has  failed  to  confuse 
it  at  some  point  with  Charterhouse  Churchyard  (Square), 
and  even  with  New  Churche  Hawe,  i.e.  the  monastery 
itself,  to  which  we  may  now  proceed. 


CHAPTER  III 

NEW  CHURCHE  HAWE  (THE  MONASTERY) 

THE  third  burial-ground  which  was  opened  to  meet  the 
need  of  London  in  the  Black  Death  in  1349  was  the  Spital 
Croft  or  New  Churche  Hawe,  which  twenty-three  years 
later,  in  1371,  was  to  become  the  House  of  the  Salutation 
of  the  Mother  of  God — otherwise  called  Charterhouse. 
It  is  at  this  point  that  a  certain  manuscript  in  the  Record 
Office  becomes  of  predominant  value  to  us.  It  has 
strangely  escaped  the  notice  of  previous  historians  of  the 
place  ;  yet  without  reference  to  it  many  of  the  difficulties 
connected  with  earlier  history  of  the  monastery  could  not 
have  been  set  at  rest.* 

The  MS.  is  clearly  a  compilation  from  documents 
belonging  to  the  monastery,  made  by  a  monk  who  seems 
to  have  done  his  work  during  the  last  thirty  years  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  since  the  last  event  recorded  by  him  is 
of  the  date  1481.  The  authorship  is,  of  course,  unknown. 
The  name  of  the  learned  Carthusian  writer,  Father  Rock, 
who  was  in  the  London  cloister  about  that  time,  naturally 
suggests  itself.  Dom  Hendriks  mentions  that  doubts  have 
been  felt  whether  Father  Rock  is  not  really  one  and  the 
same  as  Dom  Richard  Roche,  who  became  prior  about 
1488.  In  the  list  of  priors  given  in  this  MS.  the  last 
prior  named  is  John  Walfingham  (or  Walsyngham  ?), 
who  died  in  1487  or  1488.  Richard  Roche  resigned  his 
post  as  prior  in  1500,  but  remained  in  the  cloister  as 

*  I  owe  my  own  knowledge  of  its  existence  to  the  kindness  of 
Sir  W.  St.  John  Hope.  The  MS.  is  61  in  the  Chartularies  of  Charter- 
house. It  will  be  referred  to  in  this  volume  as  M.S.M.I.=Manuscrip- 
tum  Monachi  Ignoti. 

8 


NEW  CHURCHE  HAWE  9 

vicar  till  1512.  He  can  hardly,  therefore,  be  the  compiler, 
since  his  leisure  after  his  retirement  would  have  been 
ample  for  the  completion  of  his  task,  unless,  indeed,  we 
suppose  that  he  began  it  quite  late  in  his  life,  and  that 
death  overtook  him  before  he  had  got  beyond  the  events 
of  1481.  In  such  case,  however,  it  is  hard  to  explain 
why  in  his  list  of  priors  he  should  have  omitted  the  name 
of  Prior  Tynbygh,  who  succeeded  him.  The  authorship, 
indeed,  must  remain  uncertain.  The  question  is  interesting 
but  not  important.  What  is  important  is  to  know  that  the 
MS.  may  be  trusted  ;  that  wherever  its  statements  as  to  a 
historical  fact  *  can  be  tested  they  stand  the  test ;  and 
that  by  comparison  of  its  account  with  the  facts  given  to 
us  by  other  contemporary  documents,  we  are  able  at  last 
to  shape  a  fairly  coherent  description  of  the  origins  of  the 
monastery. 

Let  us  return  to  the  year  1349.  We  have  seen  how 
Bishop  Ralph  de  Stratford  came  to  the  rescue  of  his  fellow 
citizens  by  the  gift  of  Pardon  Churchyard.  At  the  same 
moment,  or  a  few  weeks  later,  Sir  Walter  de  Manny, 
with  the  same  pious  intention,  negotiated  with  the 
Master  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital  for  a  close  or 
croft  of  land  lying  north-east  f  of  St.  Bartholomew's, 
between  it  and  Pardon  Churchyard  aforesaid.  This  plot 
was  13  acres  1  rood  in  extent.  It  was  known  as  the 
"  Spital  Croft,"  and  as  soon  as  the  little  chapel  or  church 
presently  to  be  mentioned  was  built  upon  it,  it  became 
the  *'  New  churche  hawe."  Of  this  croft  3  acres  or  so 
remained  as  Charterhouse  Churchyard,  or  Charterhouse 
Yard,  now  Charterhouse  Square,  after  the  monastery  in 

*  Readers  who  refer  to  the  original  MS.  will  find  a  certain  number 
of  recitals  of  miraculous  apparitions  and  legends.  It  must  be  said 
with  regard  to  these  that  their  entire  removal  in  no  way  interferes 
with  the  historical  value  of  the  rest  of  the  MS.  We  may  be  content 
to  adopt  the  sensible  attitude  of  the  Carthusian,  Dom  llendriks,  in 
similar  cases.  (See  The  London  Charterhouse,  p.  ix.) 

t  The  distance  from  the  nearest  point  of  Charterhouse  Square 
to  the  north  porch  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Church  is  less  than  200 
yards.  The  rough  roadway,  now  Long  Lane,  a  continuation  of  the 
Barbican,  lay  between,  a  branch  of  the  Fleet  ditch  wandering  on 
the  north  of  the  highway  from  Aldersgate  Street  to  Fleet  Street. 
This  ditch  is  covered  in. 


10  NEW  CHURCHE  HA  WE 

1371  had  absorbed  and  enclosed  the  other  10  acres  and  a 
rood.  The  terms  on  which  Manny  acquired  the  land  are 
thus  stated  *  : — 

*'  And  first  they  agreed  that  the  said  Lord  should  have 
the  said  land  to  rent  for  12  marks  the  year.  Until  he  should 
have  caused  another  property  worth  20  marks  the  year  to 
be  conveyed  to  them  in  exchange  for  the  said  land,  and 
that  they  would  pray  for  him  and  his  and  thus  he  held  the 
said  croft  with  its  belongings  until  the  year  of  our  Lord 
1370  when  he  caused  to  be  conveyed  to  them  in  exchange 
for  the  land  aforesaid  [Spital  Croft]  the  Manor  of  Sereclegh 
in  the  county  of  Kent." 

Spital  Croft  was  dedicated  as  a  burial-ground  by  Ralph 
Stratford  in  honour  of  the  Holy  Trinity  and  the  Communi- 
cation of  the  Virgin  Mary  (the  Salutation  of  the  Mother  of 
God),  apparently  at  Candlemas,  Feb.  2,  1349.  But  seven 
weeks  and  three  days  later,  on  Lady  Day,  Mar.  25,  the 
same  Bishop,  with  the  Mayor  of  London,  John  Lewkyn, 
or  Lovekyn,  the  sheriffs,  the  aldermen,  and  many  others, 
nearly  all  barefooted,  came  in  procession ;  and  on  that 
day  Sir  Walter  de  Manny  laid  the  foundation  of  a  chapel 
which  twenty-three  years  later  became  the  Conventual 
Chapel,  at  the  foundation  of  the  monastery.  The  Bishop's 
address,  we  are  told,  was  upon  the  text  "  Ave."  f 

This  chapel,  whose  eastern  and  northern  walls  still 
exist  beneath  the  modern  panels,  passed  in  1611  into  the 
hands  of  Sutton's  Governors,  and,  with  many  alterations 
and  additions,  has  been  the  chapel  of  the  hospital  since 
that  time. 

The  provision  thus  made  by  Manny  for  the  burial  of 
the  dead  of  the  plague  was  sorely  needed  by  the  stricken 
city.  We  may,  indeed,  set  aside  as  impossible — all  the 
best  authorities  are  agreed  on  the  point — the  figures  loosely 
given  and  as  loosely  repeated  by  the  chroniclers  of  that  day. 

Stow,  writing  late  in  the  sixteenth  century,  tells  us 
that  he  had  seen  in  Charterhouse  Yard  (Square)  a  stone 
cross  with  an  inscription  stating  that  in  the  year  1349, 

*  Ch.M.S.  t  M.S.M.I. 


NEW  CHURCHE  HAWE  11 

while  the  pestilence  ruled,  more  than  50,000  bodies  were 
buried  there  or  within  the  bounds  of  the  monastery, 
besides  many  others  "  up  to  the  present  time."  Camden 
quotes  from  the  same  inscription  40,000.  The  M.S.M.I. 
says  60,000,  but  does  not  confine  the  burials  to  any  single 
year.  There  is,  of  course,  nothing  to  show  the  date  at 
which  the  cross  was  erected.  It  may  have  been  long  after 
the  event,  the  mere  echo  of  earlier  exaggeration.  For 
Creighton,  Gasquet,  and  others  have  established  it  that 
in  1349  the  entire  population  within  the  walls  of  London 
could  not  have  exceeded  45,000.  We  know  also  that  the 
plague  of  1349  attacked  mainly  the  adults  of  the  artisan 
and  labouring  classes,  making  little  havoc  amongst  women 
and  children,  and  sparing,  with  a  few  exceptions,*  the  rich 
and  well-to-do.  In  a  population  of  45,000  considerably 
more  than  half  would  be  women  and  children.  We  have, 
therefore,  to  conclude  that  25,000  victims  would  be  a 
liberal  estimate,  and  not  all  found  their  rest  in  Spital  Croft. 
Even  so,  however,  the  figures  are  sufficiently  appalling. 

The  plague  was  at  its  worst  from  Candlemas  (Feb.  2) 
to  Pentecost,  says  William  of  Avebury,  after  which  it 
died  away,  and  by  January,  1350,  it  was  at  an  end  in 
London.  In  1361  came  a  second  furious  outburst,  known 
as  "  pestis  secunda,"  or  "  pestis  puerorum,"  because  it 
chose  its  victims  largely  from  the  young.  In  the  years, 
however,  which  intervened  between  these  two  outbursts, 
danger  seeming  to  be  past,  a  scheme  was  formed  for 
founding  on  Spital  Croft,  or  New  Church  Hawe,  either  a 
Carthusian  monastery  or  some  other  foundation  consisting 
of  thirteen  priests.  The  scheme  seems  to  have  been  due 
to  Michael  de  Northburgh,  who  became  Bishop  of  London  on 
Stratford's  death  in  1355.  Northburgh,  who,  as  Edward's 
counsellor  and  secretary  in  the  French  wars,  had  seen 
much  of  Carthusian  monasteries  abroad,  especially  that  of 
Paris,  had  formed  a  very  high  opinion  of  the  order.  He 
was  himself  a  Dominican.  Probably  Manny  had  had 
similar  opportunities  of  forming  an  opinion.  There  was, 

*  Amongst  the  exceptions  was  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
who  died  in  August  six  days  after  landing  from  Avignon. 


12  NEW  CHURCHE  HA  WE 

moreover,  a  peculiar  fitness  in  handing  over  to  the  care  of 
that  order  the  soil  wherein  so  many  had  found  burial, 
since  it  is  to  the  Carthusian  order  above  all  orders  that 
prayers  and  service  for  the  souls  of  the  dead  pertain  as 
part  of  their  daily  ministry.  The  preference  both  of 
Manny  and  Northburgh  was,  therefore,  clearly  for  a 
foundation  of  the  Carthusian  order,  but  the  indenture 
entered  into  between  them — which  is  so  important  that  it 
must  be  quoted  at  length — points  to  an  alternative  founda- 
tion of  another  order  and  provides  special  clauses  for  such 
an  alternative. 

"  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Amen.  This  is  the  agreement 
made  between  the  Reverend  Father  in  God  Dan  Michael 
de  Northburg  by  the  Grace  of  God  Bishop  of  London  and 
Sir  W  de  Mauny  Lord  of  Mauny  :  and  it  is  to  this  effect 
that  the  said  W  received  of  the  said  Lord  Bishop  as  his 
first  associate  after  himself  for  the  foundation  and  advowson 
and  building  of  the  Church  of  the  Salutation  of  Our  Lady 
outside  London  beside  Smithfield  which  was  begun  to  be 
built  on  the  day  of  the  Salutation  of  Our  Lady  in  the 
year  of  Grace  1349  according  to  English  use  to  build 
there  a  perpetual  Carthusian  Convent  of  thirteen  priests 
of  that  order  if  it  can  well  be  done  and  if  not  of  another 
order  as  they  may  agree  or  of  a  lesser  number  to  endure 
for  all  time  to  celebrate  and  say  daily  for  their  two  selves 
aforesaid  and  for  Dame  Margaret  Marechall  Lady  of 
Mauny  wife  of  the  said  William  *  and  for  their  children 
and  successors  in  general  of  this  blood  and  for  the  souls 
of  all  their  ancestors  of  whom  they  have  come  as  well  as 
for  those  who  pertain  to  the  said  Bishop  and  for  all 
parents  f  friends  and  benefactors  of  both  parties  and  for 
all  those  living  and  dead  for  whom  both  parties  are  bound 
to  pray  or  cause  prayer  and  also  specially  for  the  souls  of 
all  whose  bodies  are  or  are  to  be  buried  there. 

"  Also  it  was  agreed  to  this  effect  that  the  beginning  of 
that  foundation  was  during  the  pest  which  was  in  the 
aforesaid  year  and  is  in  the  present  [year  1361]  to  bury 

*  An  obvious  slip  for  Walter.  Sir  William  de  Manny,  brother 
of  Sir  Walter,  was,  however,  buried  in  the  monastery. 

t  "  Parents  "  used  in  the  ancient  sense  of  relations  at  large,  as 
it  is  still  used  in  Italy. 


i  , 


Sill If  IJff'          ^:; 
lllJlli  j'lfll.llEilf  3  j|4|x4r  i 

f  B  a  f  "I  ?!f  |  i-1'l  ? '--  S  -   -  1   "I 1  i  E 

7  I ^  S-'3  *  r.  *  B  1  ? -4- -a  ^~  =  "^  -Z-  '      ?•"§- B  5    * 

~ 

.       "|5 


f 


2 


NEW  CHURCHE  HAWE  13 

there  in  the  cemetery  the  bodies  of  all  Christians  and 
specially  of  the  City  of  London,  who  may  wish  to  be  buried 
there  both  of  rich  and  poor  and  both  outside  and  on 
account  of  the  pest  but  specially  on  account  of  it.  And 
it  was  agreed  that  while  the  said  Michael  and  Walter  are 
alive  the  said  Walter  during  his  lifetime  ought  to  be  the 
first  founder,  patron,  and  protector  and  the  said  Michael 
the  Bishop  his  next  associate  as  is  aforesaid.  And  they 
ought  to  do  by  our  consent  and  assent  all  that  pertains  to 
the  said  foundation  building  and  property  and  all  those 
things  that  patrons  and  protectors  ought  to  do  for  those 
who  are  in  England.  And  after  the  death  of  the  said 
Walter  the  said  Dan  Michael  of  Norbury  and  the  assigns 
of  the  said  Bishop  ought  to  have  the  patronage  and 
advowson  for  all  time  for  ever.  And  that  neither  Margery 
Mareschall  wife  of  the  said  Walter  nor  their  children  nor 
heirs  nor  any  other  through  them  shall  be  able  to  claim 
any  share  in  the  advowson  or  patronage  of  the  said  church 
except  that  they  shall  be  first  after  the  said  Walter  and  the 
Bishop  in  all  masses  memorials  prayers  orisons  and  hours. 
And  also  that  all  those  and  those  who  are  and  shall  be  of 
their  offspring  or  of  their  own  proper  blood  issuing  from 
their  bodies  can  choose  for  themselves  or  through  these 
fit  places  when  they  please  for  each  one  according  to  his 
estate  for  their  burial  both  inside  the  chancel  as  in  the 
body  of  the  church  or  in  other  places  pertaining  to  the 
church  and  the  said  Bishop  undertakes  himself  or  will 
undertake  from  this  time  all  burdens  which  are  upon  the 
place  and  will  free  the  said  Walter  and  his  heirs  both 
spiritual  and  temporal  and  of  all  those  things  there  that 
ought  to  be  made  a  perpetual  memorial  remaining  in  the 
said  church.  Dated  at  London  the  9th  day  of  May  in 
the  year  of  Grace  1361."  * 

The  provision  of  this  indenture  with  regard  to  the 
patronage  and  advowson  is  clearly  inserted  in  case  the 
foundation  should  not  be  of  the  Carthusian  order.  For 
a  Carthusian  monastery  there  could  be  no  patronage  or 
advowson  vested  in  any  bishop.  The  prior  is  elected  by 
his  brother  monks,  the  election  being  subject  to  confirma- 
tion by  the  general  chapter  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse.  The 

*  M.S.M.I. 

c 


14  NEW  CHURCHE  HA  WE 

document  makes  clear  the  relative  shares  of  Manny  and 
Northburgh  in  the  foundation  which  has  hitherto  been 
little  understood. 

The  indenture  signed,  Northburgh  seems  at  once  to 
have  summoned  the  Priors  *  of  Witham  and  of  Hinton, 
the  two  Somersetshire  Charterhouses,  to  confer  with  him 
in  London.  But  on  their  return  journey  the  Prior  of 
Hinton  died  at  Salisbury,f  and  the  Prior  of  Witham  (St. 
Hugh's  Priory)  soon  after  reaching  his  home,  whether  of 
plague  or  other  illness  is  not  told  us.  Northburgh  himself 
died  of  plague  on  Sept.  9,  1361,  and  was  buried  near  the 
west  porch  of  St.  Paul's.  His  will,  made  on  May  23,  1361, 
had  left  many  mixed  bequests — his  entire  suit  of  armour, 
his  Bible,  his  beaker  called  a  "  Katherine,"  his  cope  and 
mitre  to  his  successor  in  the  see.  But  the  passage  which 
concerns  our  foundation  runs  as  follows  : — 

"  Further  I  leave  the  sum  of  2000£  for  the  foundation 
of  a  house  according  to  the  ritual  of  the  Carthusian  Order 
in  a  place  commonly  called  Newe  Churche  Hawe  where 
there  is  a  church  of  the  Annunication  of  the  B.V.  Mary 
which  place  and  patronage  I  acquired  from  Sir  Walter  de 
Manny  :  and  I  leave  the  said  house  when  complete  divers 
basins  for  use  at  the  High  Altar,  J  a  silver  vessel  enamelled 
for  containing  the  Host ;  my  best  silver  Stoup  for  the 
holy  water  with  sprinkler  silver  bell  etc  as  well  as  all 
my  rents  and  tenements  in  London." 

Bereft  of  its  prime  mover,  the  scheme  lay  fallow  for  a 
while.  Manny,  now  getting  old,  was  also  seriously  busy 
with  the  calls  of  war  both  in  France  and  England,  and  had 
lost  the  man  to  whom  probably,  as  a  soldier,  he  had  left 
the  details  better  suited  to  a  Churchman.  But  the  new 
Prior  of  Hinton,  John  Luscote  or  Lustote,  inspired,  no 
doubt,  by  his  predecessor,  warmly  espoused  the  scheme, 

*  We  do  not  know  their  names.  In  the  lists  of  Priors  of  Witham 
and  Hinton  there  is  a  large  gap  just  at  this  period,  and  neither  name 
is  recorded. 

t  M.S.M.I. 

J  These  were  the  vessels  which  were  removed  by  Thomas  Cromwell 
at  the  Suppression.  The  will  with  the  fragment  of  Northburgh's 
seal  attached  is  among  the  archives  of  St.  Paul's. 


THE   FIRST   MONKS  15 

and  a  few  years  later  went  to  London  to  press  the  cause. 
But  he  met  with  the  strongest  opposition  in  high  ecclesiastical 
quarters,  especially  from  the  Bishop  and  Chapter  of  Ely, 
the  Dean  and  Chapter  of  St.  Paul's,  and  the  Master  of 
St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital.*  But  in  an  interview  with 
Simon  of  Sudbury,  Bishop  of  London,  at  Chelmsford,  he 
so  completely  prevailed,  that  that  bishop  shortly  over- 
rode all  objections,  and,  in  1370,  Manny  applied  to  the 
General  Chapter  (of  the  Grande  Chartreuse)  for  licence  to 
build  the  Monastery  of  the  Salutation  of  the  Mother  of 
God  near  London.  At  Ascensiontide  of  that  year  John 
Luscote  as  Rector  (the  title  of  Prior  not  belonging  to  an 
unfinished  Charterhouse)  entered  with  his  brother  monks 
into  possession  of  the  temporary  buildings  prepared  for 
them.  Manny,  about  the  same  time,  enfeoffed  the  prior 
(Luscote)  after  having,  as  before  explained,  exchanged  the 
Manor  of  Sereclough  in  Kent  for  the  freehold  of  New 
Church  Hawe.  The  names  of  the  first  monks  whom  Luscote 
gathered  to  people  the  first  cells  of  this  celebrated  priory  are 
recorded  as  follows  : — 

Prior  John  Luscote,  from  God's  Place  of  Hinton ; 
John  Gryssely,  "  redditus,"  presently  ordained  priest ; 
Dan  John  Borehulke,  monk -priest  from  Witham ;  Dan 
John  Netherbury,  monk-priest  from  Witham ;  Dan  Guy 
de  Burgh,  monk-priest  of  Beauvale  ;  Dan  Thomas  Shirley, 
monk-priest  of  Beauvale ;  Dan  Roger  Axelbrugg,  monk- 
priest  of  Hinton ;  Brother  Benedict,  a  lay  brother  from 
Hinton. 

At  this  point  we  meet  with  a  name  of  great  interest 
in  connection  with  the  building  of  the  monastery.  It  is 
stated  in  Conder's  Hole  Art  of  Masonry,  and  by  other 
writers,  that  Henry  Yevele  was  concerned  in  the  early 
buildings  of  the  monastery,  but  no  references  being  given 
to  any  original  documents,  it  seemed  as  if  the  statements 
rested  on  tradition  merely.  But  in  the  M.S.MJ.  occurs 
the  following  passage  :  "  In  the  same  year  (1371)  about 

*  An  anchorite  woman  living  near  the  church  is  also  mentioned 
as  a  special  thorn  in  the  side  to  John  Luscote.  M.8.M.I. 


16 

the  feast  of  the  Ascension  of  our  Lord  the  said  Lord  de 
Manny  and  the  said  Prior  made  an  agreement  with  Henry 
Revell  for  building  the  first  cell  and  beginning  the  great 
cloister  to  the  fabric  of  which  the  said  Lord  gave  100£  and 
laid  the  foundation."  The  MS.  is  obviously  a  transcript 
made  in  late  fifteenth  or  early  sixteenth  century  from 
earlier  original  documents,  and  the  transcriber  seems  to 
have  read  the  Yevele  of  the  earlier  MS.  as  Revell.  It  is 
worth  remarking  that  other  authors  seem  to  have  had 
recourse  to  some  document  in  which  there  was  a  difficulty 
in  deciphering  the  leading  letter  of  the  name,  since  it  has 
even  been  written  in  error  Zevele.*  There  is  no  practical 
doubt  that  the  Henry  Revell  of  the  M.S.M.I.  is  no  other 
than  Henry  Yevele,  the  master  mason,  master  mason 
hewer  (architect  and  sculptor  in  modern  terms),  who  stood 
foremost  amongst  English  architects  of  his  age.  Born 
perhaps  in  1320,  he  was  at  this  time  at  his  prime.  Already 
he  was  King's  master  mason  to  Edward  III  for  Windsor 
and  the  Tower.  A  little  later  we  find  him  the  sculptor 
of  the  marble  work,  with  Stephen  Lote,  of  the  tomb  of 
Archbishop  Langham  (d.  1376)  in  Westminster  Abbey. 
Professor  Lethaby  |  assigns  to  him,  with  good  reason,  the 
tomb  there  of  Edward  III  (d.  1377);  while  it  is  quite 
certain  that  he,  once  more  with  Lote,  was  in  1394  the 
sculptor  of  the  noble  tomb  which  Richard  II  set  up, 
close  to  that  of  Edward  III,  for  himself  and  his  dead  wife 
Anne  of  Bohemia.  Yevele  had  in  1383  a  share  in  the 
Bridge  of  Stroud.  But  most  of  all  he  is  to  be  remembered 
as  the  director  (in  1388)  and  designer  (probably)  of  the 
new  nave  of  Westminster  Abbey,  and  in  1395,  at  the  end 
of  his  life,  as  responsible  for  the  work  in  the  roof  of  West- 
minster Hall.  One  sees,  therefore,  how  natural  it  was 
that  such  a  man,  highly  valued  at  the  Court,  should  have 
been  called  in  by  Manny  to  do  the  work  at  the  monastery, 
which  was  to  be  his  everlasting  memorial,  and  in  which 
he  designed  to  be  laid  to  rest.  Yevele's  work,  though  it 
fell  at  the  moment  when  the  Decorated  Style  was  passing 

*  It  is  found  as  Yevele,  Zevele,  Revell,  Eveleigh,  Ivelighe. 
t  See  Lethaby,  Westminster  Abbey  and  its  Craftsmen. 


HENRY  YEVELE'S   WORK  17 

into  Perpendicular,  was,  for  its  time,  severely  simple,  and 
therefore  well  suited  to  an  order  whose  hall-mark  was  in 
all  things  simplicity.  A  few  time-worn  stones,  and  still 
more  time-worn  doorways  and  hatches,  are  all  that  are 
left  to  us  of  Yevele's  work.  They  tell  us  nothing  of  his 
arcade  around  the  Great  Cloister,  nor  of  the  cells,  nor  of 
aught  else  that  came  from  his  design  in  Charterhouse. 
These  all  passed  away  at  the  Suppression.  They  went 
forth  in  the  shape  of  those  loads  of  stone  which  went  as 
loot  to  the  share  of  Layton  *  and  his  fellows,  or  took  new 
form  in  the  great  mansion  that  presently  rose  out  of 
their  ruins. 

Late  in  1371,  then,  the  first  few  permanent  cells  were 
sufficiently  advanced  for  occupation.  The  chapel,  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  had  been  built  in  1349  for  non-Carthusian 
uses,  now  became  the  conventual  church.  For  several 
other  essential  features  of  a  Carthusian  monastery  John 
Luscote  and  his  monks  were  to  wait  for  many  years.  He 
now  became  formally  prior  by  the  act  of  the  General 
Chapter  of  the  Order.  Manny's  charter  had  been  signed 
on  Mar.  28  of  that  year,  and  the  foundation  had  received 
the  licence  of  Edward  III  on  Feb.  6  in  the  same  year, 
from  which,  of  course,  the  true  history  of  the  monastery 
dates.  The  burial-ground  of  New  Churche  Hawe,  passing 
for  ever  from  its  original  purpose,  had  now  become  a 
Carthusian  monastery  under  the  name  of  The  House  of 
the  Salutation  of  the  Mother  of  God  near  London. 

*  See  the  Report  of  William  Daylle,  1538,  in  the  Record  Office. 
State  Papers,  30  Henry  VIII  -. 


CHAPTER  IV 

SIB   WALTER   DE   MANNY — BISHOP   MICHAEL   DE 
NORTHBURGH 

ABOUT  Jan.  15,  1372,  a  few  months  after  his  monastery 
had  taken  shape  with  its  first  cells  on  the  west  side  *  of 
the  Great  Cloister,  its  "  first  founder  "  was  laid  to  rest  at 
the  foot  of  the  high  altar  of  the  little  chapel,  which  already 
in  the  twenty-three  years  of  its  existence  was  so  fully 
stored  with  memories.  His  will  bears  date  some  six  weeks 
earlier,  St.  Andrew's  Day  (Nov.  30)  of  1371.  It  contains 
these  words  : — 

"  My  body  to  be  buried  at  God's  pleasure  but  if  it 
may  be  in  the  midst  of  the  quire  of  the  Carthusians  called 
Our  Lady  near  West  Smithfield  in  the  suburbs  of  London 
of  my  foundation  but  without  any  great  pomp  and  I  will 
that  my  executors  cause  20  masses  to  be  said  for  my  soul 
and  that  every  poor  person  coming  to  my  funeral  shall 
have  a  penny  to  pray  for  me  and  for  the  remission  of  my 
sins." 

Then  follow  some  of  the  rich  picturesque  touches  which 
lend  such  a  colour  to  wills  of  that  date.  We  read  of  a 
girdle  of  gold,  of  a  hook  for  his  mantle,  of  a  garter  of  gold 
(the  order  of  the  GARTER),  of  knives  and  beds  and  dossers, 
"  except  my  folding  bed  [his  camp  bed  ?]  paly  of  blue 
and  red  [his  bearings]  which  I  bequeath  to  my  daughter 
of  Pembroke  [Margaret  Plantagenet,  wife  of  John  de 
Hastings,  Earl  of  Pembroke].'  Then  once  more  a  reference 
to  his  foundation. 

*  The  door  and  hatch  of  one  of  these  cells  (B)  still  remains.  The 
hatch  of  a  second  cell  (C)  is  also  visible,  and,  not  without  question,  I 
can  trace  the  portion  of  cell  (D). 

18 


FRAGMENT   OF   MANNY'S    TOMB.    1372. 


AUMBRY    ON    EAST    WALL:    MONASTERY    CHURCH.       1319-1371. 


MANNY'S  TOMB  19 

"  Also  I  will  that  a  tomb  of  alabaster  with  my  image 
as  a  knight  and  my  arms  thereon  shall  be  made  for  me  like 
unto  that  of  Sir  John  Beauchamp  in  St.  Paul's  in  London. 
I  will  that  prayers  be  said  for  me  and  for  Alice  de  Henalt 
Countess  Marshal.  And  whereas  the  King  oweth  me  an 
old  debt  of  1000  pounds  by  bills  of  his  wardrobe  I  will 
that  if  it  can  be  obtained  it  shall  be  given  to  the  Prior  and 
Monks  of  the  Charterhouse.  And  whereas  there  is  due  to 
me  from  the  Prince  [the  Black  Prince]  from  the  time  he 
has  been  Prince  of  Wales,  the  sum  of  C  marks  per  annum 
for  my  salary  as  Governor  of  Hardelagh  [Harlech]  Castle 
I  bequeath  one  half  thereof  to  the  monks  and  Prior  of  the 
Charterhouse  and  the  other  half  to  executors  of  my  will." 

Manny's  wish  was  carried  out,  and  on  the  day  when  the 
best  and  bravest  of  Edward's  knights  was  lowered  to  his 
rest,  there  stood  about  the  grave  the  King  himself  and  all 
the  King's  children,  and  the  chief  of  the  Barons  and  nobility 
of  England.  John  of  Gaunt,  his  friend  and  comrade  in 
arms— doubtless  also  present — gave  to  the  monastery 
wherewith  to  pay  for  500  masses  for  the  dead  soldier's  soul. 
Dame  Margaret  Brotherton  (Plantagenet),  his  wife,  was  at 
a  later  date  also  buried  in  the  chapel,  we  know  not  where. 
So,  too,  his  brother  Sir  William  de  Manny.  The  tombs  of 
one  and  all  vanished  at  the  Suppression.  Taking  the 
clue  from  Manny's  will  we  are  able  to  conjecture  the  design 
of  his  own  tomb  from  a  rude  woodcut  in  Dugdale  of  the 
tomb  of  Sir  John  Beauchamp,  which  perished  in  the  fire  of 
London.  That  woodcut  shows  us  a  recumbent  figure  on  a 
table  tomb  with  a  canopy  above.  A  few  years  ago  a  work- 
man repairing  the  front  of  the  Registrar's  House  (Long 
Gallery  of  Howard  House)  towards  the  entry  court,  removed 
a  stone  which  proved,  when  its  interior  surface  was  seen, 
to  be  a  portion  of  the  canopy  of  Manny's  tomb,  preserving, 
by  good  fortune,  one  of  the  shields  with  Manny's  arms.* 
No  doubt  many  like  fragments  from  the  monastery  were 
built  by  North  and  Norfolk  into  the  walls  of  their 
mansion. 

*  The  fragment  is  preserved  in  Charterhouse  Chapel. 


20  SIR  WALTER  DE  MANNY 

Walter  de  Manny  *  was  a  native  of  Hainault,  fourth  of 
the  five  sons  of  Jean  le  Borgne  de  Masny,  and  of  Jeanne  de 
Jeulain.  Masny  is  now  a  village  some  20  kilometers  east 
of  Douai,  lying  a  little  south  of  Montigny-en-Estrevent, 
a  station  on  the  line  between  Douai  and  Valenciennes. 
Jeulain  is  a  village  east  of  the  latter  town.  The  Lords  of 
Masny  claimed  descent  from  the  Counts  of  Hainault,  and 
Walter,  as  an  esquire  of  Isabella,  seems  to  have  come  over 
with  her  in  1327,  when  she  arrived  to  be  the  bride  of 
Edward  III.  From  that  time  forward  as  the  devoted 
vassal  of  his  master,  he  became  more  English  than  the 
English,  and  his  name  stood  in  the  records  of  his  day  as 
the  type  of  all  chivalry  and  gallantry.  It  is  said,  indeed, 
that  his  deeds  lost  nothing  in  their  recording  at  the  hands 
of  his  fellow-countryman  Froissart  of  Valenciennes,  to 
whose  Iliad  he  was  a  very  Achilles.  "  Mon  livre  est  moult 
renlumine  de  ses  prouesses,"  says  the  old  chronicler :  and 
if  even  the  testimony  of  two  other  fellow-countrymen, 
Jean  le  Bel  and  Jean  de  Kleerk,  be  also  discounted,  there 
remains  enough  behind  in  the  mere  list  of  his  enterprises, 
and  still  more  in  the  honour  in  which  he  was  held  by  the 
King  and  his  fighting  Court,  to  place  Manny  in  the  foremost 
place  among  English  knights  of  a  knightly  age. 

Already,  in  1331,  he  had  been  knighted,  and  from  that 
time  forward  to  the  end  of  an  unwearied  and  strenuous  life 
his  days  were  spent,  with  few  intervals,  in  the  wars  of  his 
master.  It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  book  to  give  a 
detailed  account  of  a  career  involving  so  much  history. 
The  merest  record  must  suffice  with  here  and  there  some 
dwelling  on  the  most  notable  incidents  of  a  life  so 
picturesque.  We  find  him  in  1332  joined  with  Edward 
Balliol  in  his  attempt  upon  Scotland,  and  presently 
besieging  Berwick.f  A  little  later  he  was  in  Wales  to  hold 

*  The  name  appears  in  many  shapes  :  Maunay,  Mauny,  Masny, 
Mannay,  Manney,  Manny.  The  spelling  on  the  French  ordinance 
map  is  Masny.  I  have,  as  a  rule,  adhered  to  the  accepted,  though 
less  correct,  English  spelling.  Since  the  above  was  written  the  tide 
of  war  has  swept  over  the  lands  of  Masny. 

t  It  is  a  coincidence  that  both  Manny  and  Thomas  Sutton  should 
have  earned  early  distinction  as  soldiers  in  different  ages  at  Berwick  - 
on-Tweed. 


SIR   WALTER  DE   MANNY  21 

Harlech  Castle  for  the  King.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
his  unpaid  salary  for  that  service  appears  as  a  bequest  to 
the  monastery  in  his  will.  In  1337  he  is  Admiral  of  the 
Fleet  north  of  the  Thames,  and  earning  fame  by  the  capture 
of  Cadzand  off  the  mouth  of  the  Scheldt.  It  is  here  that 
he  is  accused  by  one  historian*  of  "Soevitia"  in  dealing 
with  the  garrison.  Other  sea  ventures  followed,  but  in 
1339  we  find  him  ashore  in  France  at  the  head  of  forty 
lances  and  sweeping  through  Brabant  and  Hainault ;  and 
so,  after  a  two-years'  campaign  with  Edward,  once  more  at 
sea  and  helping  largely  by  his  gallantry  to  win  at  Sluys 
in  June,  1340.  The  battle,  fought  still  after  the  manner  of 
Salamis  or  Actium,  with  boarding  stages  and  pikemen,  was 
of  a  kind  well  suited  to  tell  in  favour  of  personal  valour,  and 
had  little  enough  of  seamanship  about  it,  but  it  stands 
nevertheless  as  perhaps  the  first  really  important  English 
naval  victory  since  the  days  of  the  Danes.  It  was,  with 
his  other  achievements  at  sea,  doubtless  the  cause  of  his 
being  chosen  in  1342  to  take  a  fleet  to  Hennebont  in  South 
Brittany,  where  the  Countess  Jeanne  de  Montfort  was 
heroically  defending  the  town  against  Louis  of  Spain. 

Froissart's  description  of  the  arrival,  long  retarded, 
of  the  English  fleet  when  hope  had  almost  left  the  garrison — 
of  the  quixotic  sortie  that  very  same  night  made  after 
supper  by  Manny  and  his  comrades,  with  the  sequel  of 
the  return  to  the  walls  as  the  morning  dawned,  and  of  the 
great  kissing  of  all  the  warriors  by  the  heroic  Jeanne,  make 
up  a  picture  which  is  but  one  of  many  that  come  to  us  out 
of  those  romantic  pages.  Then  follows  another  naval 
victory  at  Quimperle,  and  a  great  campaign  with  much 
castle  taking  and  more  brave  doings.  In  1345  he  is  under 
the  banner  of  the  Earl  of  Derby  in  Gascony,  and  it  is  here 
that  he  is  once  more  charged  with  cruel  vengeance  on  the 
garrison  of  Mirepoix.f  Froissart  does  not  record  it,  but 
says  that  the  Earl  of  Derby  treated  the  inhabitants  as  was 
due  from  a  merciful  conqueror.  Manny  may,  indeed,  have 
sunk  on  some  occasion  to  the  level  of  the  warfare  of  his 

*  Adamus  Murimuthensis,  called  Murimuth. 
t  Chroniques  Abregees,  Letterhove. 


22  SIR   WALTER  DE   MANNY 

day — for  chivalry  to  the  conquered  was  by  no  means  the 
hall-mark  of  war  in  Europe  at  that  day  when  such  men  as 
Hawkwood  and  Sir  Robert  Knolles  led  their  freelances 
amongst  the  villages  of  Italy  and  France.  But  the  testi- 
mony, in  the  case  of  Manny,  is  but  slight  at  best,  and  the 
charge  fits  ill  with  his  character.  It  is  pleasanter  to  turn 
to  the  episode  which  seems  to  be  historical  and  by  which 
Manny's  name  has  come  down  to  us  in  its  best  light  when 
he  withstood  Edward  III — who,  like  his  son  the  Black 
Prince,  suffered  from  occasional  moods  of  savage  cruelty — 
and  bade  him  remember,  as  Eustace  de  St.  Pierre  and  the 
other  burghers  of  Calais  stood  before  him  awaiting  the 
death  which  he  decreed,  that  it  would  soil  his  knightly 
fame  for  ever  if  he  put  to  death  defenceless  men  whom  he 
had  taken  prisoners.  It  is  true  that  Manny  is  said  to  have 
failed  where  Queen  Isabella  presently  succeeded.  But  if 
the  story  be  true  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  Manny 
could  have  used  that  argument  if  he  was  himself  almost 
fresh  from  a  similar  vengeance  at  Mirepoix. 

Froissart  tells  a  pleasant  story  of  how,  after  Calais  had 
been  taken  by  the  English  under  Manny,  Edward  III  and 
the  Black  Prince  put  themselves  under  his  banner  in  a  night 
sortie  full  of  deeds  of  prowess.  And  so  the  wonderful  life 
goes  forward  from  romance  to  romance  at  home  and  abroad, 
with  deeds  of  quixotic  personal  bravery,  and  more  solid,  if 
less  fascinating,  enterprises  of  national  utility.  He  is  found 
as  fighter,  ambassador,  governor  of  a  district,  in  Brittany, 
Hainault,  Herefordshire.  He  raises  the  siege  of  Berwick  in 
1355 — six  years  after  his  purchase  of  Newchurch  Hawe  * — 
goes  in  October,  1359,  with  Edward  to  harry  France — is 
made  a  Knight  of  the  Garter,  and  receives  that  same  day 
from  his  friend  the  Black  Prince  the  pretty  present  of  a 
grisell  (grey)  palfrey.  He  is  still  in  France,  guarding  the 
captive  King  John  at  Calais  when  the  time  was  drawing 
near  for  Northburgh  to  make  decision  concerning  the 

*  The  Bull  of  Clement  VI  originally  granting  licence  to  Manny 
to  found  a  college  for  twelve  priests  and  a  chaplain  is  of  the  year 
1361.  This  plan  was,  as  we  have  seen,  dropped  in  favour  of  a 
Carthusian  monastery. 


MICHAEL  DE   NORTHBURGH  23 

foundation  of  the  monastery — and  he  appears  to  have  been 
in  France  in  1361  when  the  Bishop  made  his  will,  and  had 
his  interview  with  the  two  Carthusian  priors.  The  remain- 
ing ten  years  of  his  life  were  still  to  know  no  rest.  Hither 
and  thither  on  this  duty  or  on  that  for  the  making  of  war 
or  the  finishing  of  peace,  he  serves  his  last  campaign  in 
1369  under  John  of  Gaunt  in  France,  comes  back  to  take 
charge  once  more  for  a  year  of  Merioneth  Castle,  performs 
the  sorry  task  of  signing  the  commission  for  inquiry  into 
the  reputed  cruel  deeds  of  his  once  comrade  in  arms,  the 
Black  Prince,  and  so  to  his  grave  in  the  quiet  chapel  of 
the  monks  of  his  foundation,  where  day  by  day  for  endless 
years  prayers  were  to  be  put  up  for  the  soul  of  a  very  noble 
not  entirely  faultless  man. 

He  married  the  Lady  Margaret  Brotherton,  the  daughter 
and  heiress  of  Thomas  of  Brotherton,  fifth  son  of  Edward  I. 
She  was  widow  of  John,  Earl  of  Segrave,  and  was  by  her 
own  right,  as  heiress  of  her  father,  Countess  Marshall  and 
Countess  of  Norfolk,  becoming  in  her  second  widowhood 
Duchess  of  Norfolk  by  creation.  There  were  two  children 
by  this  marriage,  but  the  eldest,  a  son,  Thomas,  was 
drowned  at  Deptford,  while  the  daughter,  the  Lady  Anne, 
born  in  1355,  married  at  the  age  of  thirteen,  John  Hastings, 
Earl  of  Pembroke. 

Of  Michael  de  Northburgh  we  know  little  till  before  the 
beginning  of  his  life  as  a  cleric,  when  preferment  followed 
fast  upon  preferment.  We  find  him  as  prebendary  in 
Lichfield  Diocese,  of  Tachbrook,  Wolvey,  Longden ;  in 
Lincoln,  of  Banbury ;  in  York,  of  Bugthorpe,  and  of 
Strensall ;  in  Salisbury,  of  Netherbury  and  of  Lyme ;  in 
St.  Paul's,  of  Mapesbury.  He  was  Archdeacon  of  Chester 
and  of  Suffolk  ;  Canon  of  Hereford — with  various  other 
benefices  and  appointments  held  concurrently  or  con- 
secutively. It  was  not  till  1345  that  he  seems  to  have 
achieved  the  ambition  of  so  many  Churchmen  of  the  day 
and  found  employment  at  the  hands  of  the  King.  Edward 
sent  him  as  an  envoy  to  Pope  Clement  VI,  concerning  the 
marriage  of  the  Black  Prince  with  a  daughter  of  the  Duke  of 


24        BISHOP  MICHAEL  DE  NORTHBURGH 

Brabant,  which,  on  the  ground  of  relationship,  needed 
papal  dispensation.  He  seems  to  have  pleased  the  King, 
for  next  year,  1346,  Edward  took  him  with  him  as  coun- 
sellor on  his  French  campaign.  In  1351  he  became 
Edward's  secretary,  and  after  fulfilling  various  charges,  and 
acting  as  ambassador  on  important  occasions,  he  was  in 
1354  made  Bishop  of  London.  The  remaining  seven  years 
of  his  life  were  as  before  spent  largely  in  foreign  embassies 
and  negotiations.  He  seems,  indeed,  to  have  been  the 
typical  bishop  of  his  day,  compelled  to  share  largely  in 
every  secular  employment,  even,  as  his  will  shows,  to  the 
wearing  of  armour  when  he  followed  the  King  on  his 
campaigns — a  life  strangely  unlike  that  to  which  he  set 
the  seal  of  his  approval  when  he  became  the  second  founder 
of  the  monastery  of  the  silent  monks  in  New  Church  Hawe. 

We  have  already  dealt  with  his  share  in  the  foundation 
of  our  Charterhouse — a  great  one  from  the  point  of  view 
of  inspiration  and  of  influence — a  share  without  which 
Manny's  project  might  easily  have  fallen  to  the  ground  in 
the  press  of  many  absorbing  interests.  We  have  spoken 
also  of  his  will,  of  his  death  of  plague  at  Copford  in  Essex 
in  the  very  year  when  his  project  seemed  ripe,  and  of  his 
burial  near  the  west  porch  of  his  own  cathedral.  It 
remains  only  to  say  some  few  words  as  to  the  reasons  which 
impelled  Manny  and  Northburgh,  himself  a  Dominican, 
to  their  choice  of  the  Carthusian  order  for  their  foundation. 

Apart  from  the  fact  that  to  that  order  belonged  in  a 
special  degree  the  duties  of  prayer  for  the  dead,  there  was 
probably  to  these  two  men  a  very  special  attraction  also 
in  the  calm  and  repose  of  Carthusian  monasteries  and  in  the 
saintly  and  unworldly  lives  that  were  lived  within  them. 
These  two  men,  the  layman  and  the  Churchman,  had  known 
little  of  restfulness  in  their  own  lives,  and  they  had  been 
in  touch  with  the  world,  if  sometimes  at  its  best  yet  most 
often  at  its  worst.  War  and  rapine  with  their  forerunners 
and  their  aftermath  of  diplomacy  and  intrigue  had  been 
the  lot  of  both.  They  came  perhaps  well  out  of  it  for 
what  it  was,  but  if  we  take  the  view,  as  we  are  entitled  to 
take  it,  that  all  charge  of  cruelty  in  the  case  of  Manny  must 


CHOICE    OF   AN   ORDER  25 

be  held  to  be  non-proven,  yet  for  him  as  for  Northburgh 
the  thought  of  the  life  behind  them  must  have  been  scarred 
by  many  a  memory  of  what  they  had  seen  when  unhappy 
France  was  being  laid  in  ashes  in  the  cause  of  the  Plan- 
tagenets.  They  had  had  to  join  hands  and  share  the 
results  of  men  such  as  Knolles,  whose  track  was  marked  by 
the  burnt  homesteads  which  obtained  the  name  for  their 
ruined  gables  of  "  Knolles'  Mitres."  *  In  the  midst  of  all 
this  misery,  in  which  their  own  part  was  certainly  a  worthier 
one,  redeemed  by  some  higher  sense  of  chivalry,  they  had 
met  at  Paris,  at  Amiens,  at  Avignon,  and  elsewhere  in 
France,  the  quiet  simplicity  of  Carthusian  life,  which  must 
indeed  have  seemed  like  heaven  in  the  midst  of  hell.  Manny 
in  so  many  words  expressed  as  part  of  the  purpose  of  his 
foundation  that  prayers  should  daily  go  up  thence  not  for 
his  own  soul  alone  but  for  those  who  had  died  through  him. 
And  the  monk's  manuscript  so  often  quoted  declares  that 
Northburgh's  choice  was  due  to  what  he  had  seen  of  the 
lives  of  the  Carthusians  when  he  sought  quiet  retreat 
amongst  them  on  his  way  through  Paris  from  the  wars. 
It  remains  for  the  next  chapter  to  give  some  insight  into 
the  manner  of  this  same  Carthusian  life  in  our  own  or  any 
other  Charterhouse. 

*  Knolles — "  the  old   Brigand  "   founded   one  of  the  cells   of 
Charterhouse :  see  M.S.M.I. 


CHAPTER  V 

ST.  BRUNO  AND  THE  CARTHUSIAN  ORDER 

THE  Carthusian  order  was  founded  by  Bruno  of  Cologne 
in  the  year  1084.  It  does  not  come,  one  must  say  once 
more,  within  the  scope  of  this  book  to  attempt  a  detailed 
account  of  his  life.  A  brief  outline  must  suffice.  And, 
indeed,  the  materials  for  a  biography  are  so  few  that  they 
hardly  enable  us,  read  we  ever  so  sympathetically  between 
the  lines,  to  construct  a  personality  from  them.  It  is  com- 
paratively easy  to  bring  near  to  ourselves  the  warm  and 
human  figure  of  a  St.  Francis,  but  the  figure  of  St.  Bruno 
comes  to  us  more  stately  and  more  shadowy  through  the 
added  mist  of  two  earlier  centuries,  with  something  of  that 
statuesque  silence,  the  finger  on  the  lips,  which  Houdon 
embodied  in  the  noble  figure  in  Sta  Maria  degli  Angeli  in 
Rome.  Yet  no  one  who  has  attained  to  any  sympathetic 
understanding  of  the  Carthusian  order  can  fail  to  have 
realised  that  there  must  have  been  a  something  of  strange 
strength  and  simple  persuasive  beauty  in  the  personality 
which  could  stamp  its  own  impress  on  an  Order  whose  rules, 
fitted  apparently  for  so  few  men,  fitted  apparently  for  so 
few  ages,  has  yet  endured  for  over  eight  centuries,  and 
remains  unchanged  in  all  its  essentials  in  a  ninth,  which  is, 
in  almost  every  particular,  such  a  contradiction  of  its 
principles.  The  Carthusian  order  to-day  practises,  with 
the  very  slightest  modification,  the  very  rule  which  Bruno 
thought  out  and  put  in  practice  in  the  eleventh  century. 

It  is  agreed  that  Brunon  or  Bruno  was  a  native  of 
Cologne,  of  the  noble  family  of  Harde-Faust  (Hartenfaust, 
or  Hardevrist  *),  and  that  in  due  time  he  went  to  the 

*  The  name  Hardevrist  survived  till  the  eighteenth  century  at  Ypres. 

26 


ST.    BRUNO  27 

collegiate  school  of  St.  Cunibert  in  that  town.  Some 
writers  send  him  thence  to  the  University  of  Paris,  and 
presently  record  a  miracle — made  use  of  by  Le  Sueur  in  his 
frescoes  of  the  life  of  the  saint  for  the  Carthusian  Monastery 
of  Paris  * — whereby  Bruno  was  converted  to  his  very 
serious  view  of  life.  The  story,  which  will  be  found  in 
Mrs.  Jameson's  legends  of  the  monastic  order,  describes 
how  a  certain  Doctor  Raymond  Diocr6s,  of  great  repute 
for  his  life  and  learning,  having  been  brought  to  Notre 
Dame  for  funeral,  rose  thrice  upon  his  bier  to  the  horror  of 
the  bystanders,  uttering  at  intervals  the  sentences,  "  I  am 
called,"  "  I  am  judged,"  "  I  am  condemned."  If,  however, 
Bruno  was  really  a  student  at  Paris,  it  needs  not  to  call  in 
the  aid  of  miracle  to  explain  to  us  that  the  condition  of 
things  in  that  place  and  age  might  have  well  produced 
distress  of  mind  and  revolt  in  one  who  was  cast  in  the  mould 
of  a  St.  Bruno.  We  are  back  in  history  when  we  find  him 
at  Rheims,  where,  as  Prebendary  and  later  as  Chancellor 
he  earned  a  widespread  fame  for  his  teaching  and  his 
capacity  in  affairs,  and  famous  pupils  went  forth  from  his 
school.  Perhaps  the  foremost  of  these  was  Eudes  (Otto)  de 
Chatillon,  afterwards  Prior  of  Cluny,  and  at  last  Pope,  as 
Urban  II.  But  the  longing  to  escape  from  the  world,  no 
matter  whence  it  came,  was  strong  upon  him.  He 
presently  resigned  his  offices,  and  for  a  time  sought  the 
cloister  of  Seche-Fontaine,  near  Molesme,f  diocese  of 
Langres,  a  Benedictine  House  where  by  direct  experience  he 
learnt  the  monastic  life,  and  thought  out  in  this  light  the 
rules  of  his  own  future  order.  Presently,  his  scheme  being 
matured,  he  sets  forth  southwards  with  six  companions, 
Landuino  di  Lucca  (second  prior  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse), 
Etienne  de  Bourg  and  Etienne  de  Die  (Canons  of  Saint  Ruf, 
near  Avignon),  Hugh  the  chaplain  with  Andre  and  Guerin, 
lay  brothers.  The  little  band  set  their  faces  for  the 

*  The  original  cartoons  are  in  the  Louvre.  The  legend  is  told  at 
fuller  length  in  two  shapes  in  A.  Lefebvre's  St.  Bruno. 

f  Doubts  are,  however,  expressed  on  this  and  other  points  in 
this  period  of  the  life.  It  appears  that  at  about  this  time  Molesme, 
which  had  for  its  abbot  Robert,  the  subsequent  founder  of  Citeaux 
and  the  Cistercian  order,  had  established  a  smaller  house  close  by 
at  Seche-Fontaine.  The  question  is  discussed  in  Lefebvre,  op.  cit. 


28  ST.   BRUNO 

mountains  of  Dauphine,  to-day  the  haunt  of  happy  travellers, 
but  to  the  mind  of  that  century,  the  type  of  all  that  was 
most  wild  and  inhospitable  in  nature.  The  cause  of  the  choice 
is  not  far  to  seek.  Bruno's  old  pupil,  Hugues  de  Chateau- 
neuf,  known  to-day  as  St.  Hugh  of  Grenoble,*  was  Bishop  of 
this  latter  place.  An  old  legend  tells  how  he  had  dreamed 
that  he  saw  seven  stars  f  fall  from  heaven  on  a  certain  wild 
spot  in  his  diocese,  and,  while  he  pondered,  the  coming  of 
the  seven  pilgrims  made  clear  the  meaning.  He  takes  them 
to  the  spot,  which  bore  the  local  name  of  Chartrousse,  and 
which  had  and  has,  even  in  that  land  of  beauty,  few  rivals 
for  its  grandeur  and  wildness.  It  lies  about  halfway,  as 
the  crow  flies,  between  Chambery  and  Grenoble,  in  the 
magnificent  Gorge  de  Guiers  des  Morts,  a  deep  ravine  in  the 
mountains  of  Dauphine,  which  lies  a  little  west  of  the  valley 
of  the  Isere.  Here  at  a  point  somewhat  higher  up  the  glen 
than  the  present  monastery  these  seven  searchers  after 
God  built  for  themselves  in  June,  1084,  their  seven  wooden 
chalets,  detached  from  each  other  by  a  space  of  about  five 
cubits  ("  environ  cinq  coudees  ").  The  only  stone  building 
was  the  little  chapel,  said  to  have  stood  on  the  site  of  the 
present  oratory  of  St.  Bruno.  This  little  settlement 
became  the  type  for  all  subsequent  Carthusian  monasteries. 
It  was  swept  away — all  but  the  chapel — by  an  avalanche 
in  1132,  and  for  security  the  new  home  was  placed  lower 
down  where  now  the  glorious  but  deserted  monastery  of 
La  Grande  Chartreuse  is  seen. 

Bruno  had  thus  attained  his  ideal,  perfect  separation 
from  the  world  with  perfect  communion  with  his  Maker. 
But  meanwhile  another  of  his  old  pupils  of  Rheims,  Eudes 
(Otto)  of  Chatillon,  had  become  Cardinal  Bishop  of  Ostia, 
and  was  a  strong  candidate  for  the  papacy  when,  on  May  25, 
1085,  Gregory  VII  died  in  exile  from  Rome,  and  when 

*  Not,  of  course,  to  be  confounded  with  the  Carthusian,  St.  Hugh 
of  Lincoln,  statesman,  man  of  action,  cathedral  builder,  Bishop, 
who  died  in  1200. 

t  The  arms  of  the  Carthusian  order  became  seven  stars  or  a 
ground  azure.  But  in  1233  there  was  added  to  this  by  Dom  Martin, 
Prior  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  General  of  the  order,  the  now  well 
known  emblem  of  the  orb  surmounted  by  the  Cross  with  the  legend 
"  Stat  Crux  dum  Volvitur  orbis." 


ST.    BRUNO.       BY   HOUDON. 


ST.   BRUNO  29 

Victor  111,  a  few  months  only  after  he  had  fought  his  way 
with  Matilda's  troops  to  the  possession  of  St.  Peters,  died 
a  broken  man,  Eudes  became,  at  the  conclave  of  Terracina, 
on  May  12,  1088,  Pope  under  the  name  of  Urban  II.  This 
able  man,  the  first  Pope  who  received  consecration  outside 
of  Rome,  was  destined,  like  his  two  predecessors,  to  fight 
his  way  to  the  possession  of  his  See.  Wibert,  Archbishop 
of  Ravenna,  the  protege  of  the  Emperor  Henry,  as  anti- 
pope  under  the  title  of  Clement  III,  alternately  backed  and 
deserted  by  the  fickle  populace  of  Rome,  had,  since  1080,  held 
Rome  or  fled  from  it  as  the  Armies  of  Henry  or  of  Matilda, 
of  Robert  Guiscard  or  of  Count  Roger,  of  Cencio  Frangipani 
or  the  murderous  mob  of  Rome,  dominated  in  turn  the 
unhappy  city.  At  this  moment,  May,  1088,  Wibert  held  it, 
all  save  the  Island  of  the  Tiber  and  the  fortress  of  the 
Frangipani  beneath  the  Palatine  over  against  the  Arch  of 
Titus. 

It  was  at  this  terrible  hour  that  Urban,  sometimes  living 
the  life  of  the  refugee  on  the  Island  of  the  Tiber,  sometimes 
wandering  in  South  Italy  in  the  dominion  of  Count  Roger, 
summoned  to  his  side  as  his  counsellor,  the  man  who  had 
turned  his  back  upon  the  world.  It  says  much  for  Urban's 
confidence  in  the  wisdom  and  character  of  the  man,  that 
he  who  was  himself  a  past-master  in  all  the  arts  of  diplomacy 
should  have  summoned  such  an  one  at  such  a  crisis. 
Opinions  vary  as  to  the  date  at  which  the  summons  was 
sent — some  placing  it  in  1088  and  others  in  1090.*  Which- 
ever it  be  it  came  at  a  time  which  would  have  appalled 
even  the  most  worldly  and  most  hardened.  When  Bruno 
first  set  eyes  on  the  sacred  city  its  once  most  populous 
quarters,  the  Aventine,  and  the  Ccelian,  lay  a  blackened  heap 
of  ruins.  It  was  but  a  few  years  since  Robert  Guiscard 
with  his  wild  host  of  Normans  and  Sicilians,  of  Saracens  and 
Calabrians,  bringing  back  Gregory  to  his  own,  had  laid  the 
city  in  blood  and  ruins,  while  the  great  Pope,  for  this  once 
a  small  figure,  stood  by  and  suffered  it  without  protest. 
The  eternal  stain  on  an  otherwise  great  character  rested 

*  The  list  of  Priors  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse  is  in  favour  of  the 
later  date. 


30  ST.   BRUNO 

not  only  on  his  memory.  The  visible  scar,  which  Bruno 
beheld  that  day,  has  remained  till  within  this  writer's  own 
lifetime.  Forty  years  ago  the  Aventine  and  the  Coelian 
were  still  a  desolation. 

The  actual  share  which  Bruno  took  in  the  councils  of 
Urban,  before  the  latter  was  finally  to  gain  possession  of 
the  Lateran,  has  been  by  some  writers  denned  with  detail 
which  is  hardly  guaranteed  by  severe  history.  He  is  said 
to  have  been  an  important  factor  in  the  Councils  held  at 
Melfi,  Troia,  Benevento,  and  elsewhere  ;  to  have  been  the 
dictator  of  Urban's  policy  towards  the  Norman  princes  :  and 
to  have  been  active  in  stirring  up  adversaries  in  Germany 
against  Henry  :  to  have  negotiated  the  unlovely  marriage 
between  the  young  duke  Guelf  and  the  elderly  Empress 
Matilda,  and  generally  to  have  been  the  master-hand  who 
guided  the  intricate  diplomacies  to  which  Urban  had  to 
resort.  It  is  all  very  strange  if  true,  but  backed  by  no 
contemporary  evidence  it  is  incredible.  What  we  may  well 
believe  is  that  the  councils  of  the  Carthusian  to  his  old 
pupil  were  for  the  mitigation  of  all  that  was  so  deplorable 
in  the  intrigues  of  the  day.  But  if,  indeed,  the  later  date 
of  1090  be  the  true  one  for  the  coming  of  Bruno  to  the  Pope, 
then  the  time  that  he  remained  actually  at  his  side  was 
short.  For  before  the  year  was  out  he  had  asked  leave 
from  Urban  to  retire  once  more  to  solitude,  and  in  1091  *  a 
charter  from  Count  Roger  granted  to  him  the  lonely  site  of 
La  Torre  in  Calabria,  where  presently  arose  the  second 
monastery  founded  by  St.  Bruno  in  his  lifetime.  Surely 
the  conclusion  is  that  the  man  who  had  left  behind  his  work 
at  Rheims,  because  he  could  not  see  in  it  his  true  mission, 
had  still  less  found  that  mission  in  the  atmosphere  of  Italian 
politics  and  that  he  severed  himself  from  that  which  was 
repugnant  to  his  inner  self.  At  the  same  time  the  fact  that 
he  was  not  allowed  to  return  to  his  beloved  Chartreuse  seems 
to  show  that  Urban  desired  to  keep  this  saintly  counsellor 
within  reach.  That  Urban  did  presently  recall  him  from 
time  to  time  is  asserted  by  several  writers  and  may  have 
*  Lefebvre,  op.  ciL,  p.  97. 


LA   TORRE  31 

been  the  case.     But  there  again  the  first  authorities  for  the 
statement  are  of  a  somewhat  late  date. 

The  new  Certosa— for,  by  an  affectionate  transference, 
the  name  of  the  old  home  in  Dauphine  migrated  in  an 
Italian  form  to  the  wilderness  of  Calabria — was  certainly 
well  chosen  as  a  solitude.  It  lies  some  twenty  miles  inland 
upon  the  peninsula  of  Calabria  at  the  western  foot  of  the 
range  of  Aspromonte.  The  traveller  who  to-day  traverses, 
as  best  he  can,  those  weary  miles  of  bare  and  sunbaked 
upland  is  in  a  good  position  to  judge  of  what  it  must  have 
been  eight  centuries  ago,  when  all  was  bare  alike  and  when 
no  human  habitation  was  seen  where  now  the  poor  village 
of  "  Serra  di  San  Bruno  "  stands  a  mile  or  so  north  of  the 
monastery.  It  was  then  a  spot  to  which  none  but  some 
lonely  charcoal  burner  or  belated  huntsman  could  have 
resorted.  To-day  as  the  traveller  descends  from  the  last 
height,  and  pauses  under  the  cross  on  the  little  plot  of  level 
ground  where  tradition  says  that  Bruno  bid  farewell  to 
Landuino  after  a  visit  from  his  old  comrade,  he  sees  before 
him  in  the  valley  an  unexpected  verdure,  some  fine  oaks 
and  chestnuts,  and  some  slight  wealth  of  fruit-tree  and  olive 
backed  against  the  dark  pines  of  Aspromonte.  This  is  the 
legacy  of  seven  centuries  of  Carthusian  care  and  culture — 
the  only  civilising  force,  perhaps,  which  has  been  at  work  in 
that  forsaken  land.  The  nearest  township  is  the  poverty- 
stricken  Melito,  ten  miles  nearer  the  coast,  where  once  Count 
Roger  kept  hunting  holiday,  where  he  was  married  to 
Eremberga,  and  where  he — dying  presently  in  the  same  year 
as  Bruno,  1101  A.D. — was  to  lie  at  rest  beside  her.  There  is, 
indeed,  a  picturesque  tradition  that  Count  Roger  before  the 
granting  of  the  charter  had  already  made  acquaintance 
with  the  Saint.  The  story  would  have  it  that  Bruno,  on 
an  errand  to  Calabria  from  Pope  Urban,  had  found  for  him- 
self his  lonely  haunt  at  La  Torre,  and  here  one  day  the  great 
Norman,  while  hunting,  came  across  him.  The  tradition 
may  be  sound  :  there  is  nothing  against  it  save  a  slight 
difficulty  in  time.  But,  without  it,  it  is  also  easy  to  see 
that  from  Urban  himself,  who  had  been  a  wanderer  there, 
Bruno  might  have  had  report  of  its  fitness  for  his  choice. 


32  ST.   BRUNO 

The  first  settlement  in  this  new  home  was  at  the  spot 
known  as  La  Torre,  where  the  oratory  of  St.  Bruno  still 
marks  the  site  of  "  Sta  Maria  del  Bosco."  But  before  long 
a  second  settlement  lower  down  was  found  necessary,  and 
here  under  the  name  of  "  San  Stefano  del  Bosco  "  rose  the 
great  monastery,  which  with  one  interval,*  endured  as  a 
Certosa  till  the  great  earthquake  of  1783  shattered  the 
whole  countryside  and  left  it  a  heap  of  ruins,  the  haunt  of 
the  adder  and  the  owl.  So  it  remained  till  within  the  last 
twenty  years.  It  has  now  been  bought  and  given  once 
more  to  the  order  with  some  portion  of  its  old  domains, 
and  it  is  now  rebuilt  and  inhabited  by  Carthusian  monks. 
It  was  here  that,  with  perhaps  an  occasional  summons  to 
Rome,  Bruno  spent  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life,  and  dying 
in  1101  was  laid  to  his  rest. 

From  the  life  of  this  true  saint,  for  which  the  historical 
materials  are  all  too  few,  while  the  added  conjectures  have 
been  all  too  many,  we  at  least  are  able  to  realise  the  figure 
of  one  who  was  by  capacity  a  man  of  action,  by  preference 
a  man  of  retirement  and  self-effacement  :  a  man  by  native 
wisdom,  by  education,  by  experience,  well-equipped  for 
affairs,  and  yet  seeing  his  true  mission  in  another  direction  : 
a  man  possessed  of  many  of  the  qualities  of  a  leader  of  men  : 
a  man  above  all  capable  of  inspiring  other  men  with  his  own 
ideals,  and  holding  them  to  those  ideals  by  the  bonds  of  a 
rule  which,  however  impossible  to  the  many,  was  made 
possible  to  the  few  for  whom  it  was  intended  by  its  leavening 
of  sound  sense,  and  its  admixture  of  human  sympathy.  He 
left  behind  him  the  outlines  of  his  rule,  not  in  writing,  but 
verbally,  having,  it  is  said,  during  the  visit  to  him  of 
Landuino,  who  succeeded  him  as  Prior  of  the  Grande 
Chartreuse,  imparted  all  his  views.  Landuino  never 
reached  Dauphine,  but  dying  on  the  way  home  in  1100, 
left  in  manuscript  the  notes  which  helped  the  Prior  Guigo, 
a  few  years  later,  to  shape  the  "  Consuetudines  Ordinis 

*  It  was  for  a  short  time  abandoned  by  the  Carthusians  and 
passed  to  the  Cistercians,  by  whom  it  was  restored  to  its  original 
order. 


CONSUETUDINES  33 

Carthusiensis  "  which  became  the  accepted  text-book  for 
Carthusian  life.  They  were  not  printed  till  1510.  A  copy 
of  this  work,  from  the  noble  press  of  John  Amerbach  of 
Bale,*  lies  before  me  as  I  write.  The  rule  of  life,  simple, 
austere,  exact  down  to  the  smallest  details  of  prayer  and 
praise,  of  manners  and  conduct,  of  diet  and  dress,  is  yet  so 
tempered  with  common  sense  and  with  a  cheerful  recogni- 
tion of  the  needs  of  human  life,  that  it  has  stood  the  test  of 
eight  centuries,  and  now  in  its  ninth  it  differs  very  little 
save  for  some  slight  modifications  from  that  which  was 
lived  on  the  slopes  of  Chartrousse,  among  the  pines  of 
San  Stefano  del  Bosco  and  in  the  flats  of  Smithfield. 

*  The  Consuetudines  were  re-issued  with  invaluable  comments 
by  Dom  Masson  in  1894,  and  were  printed  at  the  monastery  of 
Montreuil  in  a  manner  worthy  both  of  them  and  of  the  press  from 
which  they  came. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   CARTHUSIAN    RULE  AND  CARTHUSIAN 
MONASTERIES 

THE  ground  plan  of  our  Charterhouse  in  London,  visible 
still  through  all  the  changes  that  have  befallen  it,  yields  up 
its  secret  only  to  those  who  have  some  knowledge  of  the 
requirements  of  a  Carthusian  monastery.  Such  knowledge 
not  only  throws  light  on  many  difficulties,  but  it  serves  to 
protect  us  from  the  many  strange  mistakes  that  have  been 
published  with  regard  to  our  monastery. 

We  saw  in  the  last  chapter  that  the  little  first  settlement 
at  Chartrousse  became  the  type  of  all  subsequent  Charter- 
houses for  all  time.  The  seven  little  wooden  cottages,  or 
cells,  built  doubtless  like  the  chalets  of  the  district,  with  a 
covered  way  or  corridor  to  unite  them,  became  in  later 
monasteries,  the  Great  Cloister  with  its  cottage  cells  and 
gardens  built  about  an  open  square  and  joined  by  the 
"  ambulacrum "  or  covered  arcade.  The  tiny  oratory 
grew  into  the  monastic  Church  :  the  little  room  where  the 
community  met  to  discuss  its  affairs  into  the  Chapterhouse ; 
the  common  room  into  the  Refectory ;  the  chalet  devoted 
to  the  wayfarer  or  visitor  into  the  Guesthouse.  These 
main  features  repeat  themselves  with  such  persistency  that 
the  plan  of  one  complete  Charterhouse  is  a  fair  guide  to  any 
other. 

To  begin  with  the  Great  Cloister,  which,  as  the  dwelling- 
place  of  the  monks,  became  of  course  the  heart  of  a  Charter- 
house, it  may  be  here  said  that  the  number  of  a  normal 
monastery  was  twelve  monks  in  the  great  cloister  and  a 
Prior.  This  number  is  found  at  the  English  Charterhouses 
of  Beauvale,  and  Axholme  and,  abroad,  of  Capri,  Avignon, 

34 


COTTAGE  CELL,  GREAT  CLOISTER.   MOUNT  GRACE. 


CELL  DOOR  AND  HATCH,  GREAT  CLOISTER.   MOUNT  GRACE. 


35 

Pontignano,  and  many  others,  and  was  the  total  of  the 
Grande  Chartreuse  in  Guigo's  day.  A  double  monastery 
housed  twenty-four  monks  in  the  Great  Cloister  with  a 
Prior.  This  number  is  found  in  our  London  Charterhouse, 
and  in  many  abroad  such  as  the  Certosas  of  Pavia,  Rome 
(Sta  Maria  degli  Angeli  in  the  Baths  of  Diocletian),  the 
Cartuja  of  Miraflores,  near  Burgos,  and  many  more,  while 
the  Grande  Chartreuse  in  its  later  day,  the  Charterhouse  of 
Sheen,  near  Richmond  (the  largest  English  Charterhouse), 
and  one  or  two  more,  held  thirty-six  cloister  cells.  The 
Certosa  of  Farneta,  near  Lucca,  which  has  become  the 
Mother  House  since  the  dissolution  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse, 
holds  nearly  double  that  number,  and  so  also  the  modern 
English  Charterhouse  of  Parkminster. 

The  word  "  cell  "  is  to  those  who  know  the  cells  of  other 
orders  misleading.  The  cell  of  a  Carthusian  is  a  detached 
house  or  cottage  placed  in  its  own  little  garden  plot.  Both 
the  cottage  and  the  plot  vary  in  size  in  various  instances. 
The  chalets  of  the  first  settlement  at  Chartrousse  are  said 
to  have  stood  with  a  mere  interval  of  7  or  8  feet.  I  have 
measured  many  cells  and  plots  in  many  Charterhouses  in 
Europe  and  have  found  the  plots  to  vary  from  some  30  feet 
square  (as  at  Avignon,  Miraflores,  etc.)  up  to  nearly  60  feet 
at  Ferrara,  whose  cells  and  gardens  are  the  roomiest  that 
I  have  seen.  But  in  the  greater  number  of  instances  the 
plots  approximate  to  50  feet  square.  The  distance  from 
hatch  to  hatch  in  the  frontage  of  the  three  cells  still  visible 
in  our  London  Charterhouse  is  about  50  feet.  The  cells 
were  either  of  one  storey  as  at  Capri,  Avignon,  Xeres,  etc., 
or  of  two  storeys,*  which  was  indeed  the  most  usual  plan, 
as  at  Mount  Grace  in  Yorkshire,  Sta  Maria  degli  Angeli  in 
Rome,  Padula  in  Apulia  and  elsewhere.  Our  own  Charter- 
house cells,  to  judge  by  the  plan  of  the  water  supply,  were  of 
two  storeys.  In  rare  instances,  as  at  Trisulti  in  the  Abruzzi 
(where,  however,  an  alteration  of  level  has  taken  place),  the 
cell  has  also  a  basement.  But  in  all  cases  the  accommoda- 
tion is  the  same,  differing  merely  in  size  and  extent.  On  the 

*  Perhaps  the  truer  description  in  most  cases  would  be  to  say  a 
ground  floor  and  a  loft. 


36  THE   CARTHUSIAN  RULE 

door,  which  none  may  pass  save  the  owner  of  the  cell,  or  the 
Prior,  or  one  who  has  the  Prior's  permission,  is  found  a 
letter  of  the  alphabet,  and  under  it  a  text  of  scripture, 
or   from  one  of  the  fathers,   beginning  with  the  corre- 
sponding letter.     Thus,  in   our   plan  we   find   every  cell 
indicated  under  its  proper  letter,  and  the  M.S.M.I.  speaks 
of  a  certain  cell  where  the  verses  are  written  which  begin 
with  the  letter  Y  ;   again  of  one  whose  verses  begin  with  I. 
At  one  side  of  the  door  is  a  little  hatch  passing,  with  an 
elbow  bend,  through  the  thickness  of  the  wall.     It  is  through 
this  hatch  that  the  food  is  passed  to  the  monk  by  the  lay 
brother,  who  must  neither  see  nor  speak  to  the  occupant. 
Two  such  hatches  may  be  traced  in  the  fragment  that 
remains  of  our  Great  Cloister.     The  cottage  is  entered, 
usually,  by  a  passage  which  gives  access  to  a  little  work- 
room, where  will  be  found  the  tools  of  the  particular  handi- 
craft which  the  monk  uses  for  his  recreation.     Here  we 
meet  at  once  the  common  sense  which  helps  to  make 
possible  the  strain  of  the  isolation  and  solitude.     For  every 
monk  must  have  a  handicraft  of  his  choice.     Before  the 
days  of  printing  the  chief  industry  of  the  Carthusian  lay  in 
the   transcribing   of   books.     This   is    especially  *    stated 
by  Guigo,  and  a  most  exact  inventory  of  the  tools  which 
each  monk  was  to  possess  for  the  purpose  is  given.     And  we 
find  the  fact  emphasised  in  early  writers.     But  after  the 
fifteenth  century  the  spread  of  printing  j  supplanted  the 

*  Guibert,  Abbe"  de  Nogent,  describes  bis  visit  about  1104  to  the 
Grande  Chartreuse.  He  tells  how  the  Comte  de  Nevers  in  kindness  of 
heart  sent  the  monks  presents  of  silver  articles,  and  how  they  refused 
the  costly  gifts  with  gratitude,  but  asked  for  a  supply  of  parchments. 
"  The  transcription  of  books,"  he  adds,  "  was  one  of  the  occupations 
by  predilection,  of  these  holy  anchorites."  Pierre  de  Cluny,  too, 
writes,  "  Ils  s'appliquent  au  silence  dans  leur  cellule  .  .  .  ou  au 
travail  des  mains,  surtout  a  copier  des  manuscrits." 

t  The  share  of  the  Carthusians,  however,  in  the  printing  of  early 
books  and  in  the  spread  of  letters  was  not  inconsiderable.  Apart 
from  the  fine  libraries  which  they  collected,  as  at  the  Karthaus  of 
Buxheim,  with  which  the  printer,  Gunther  Zainer,  seems  to  have 
had  close  connection,  a  list  of  books  printed  in  Carthusian  monas- 
teries has  been  published  by  Dr.  G.  C.  Williamson.  It  does  not  follow, 
of  course,  that  the  work  was  all  done  by  Carthusian  hands,  though 
the  presses  were  set  up  in  their  monasteries  and  doubtless  supervised 
by  them.  The  fine  printing  done  quite  recently  by  the  now  sup- 
pressed chartreuse  of  Montreuil-sur-Mer  may  also  be  mentioned. 


THE    CARTHUSIAN  RULE  37 

old  art,  and  it  may  be  said  that  carpentry,*  gardening,  book- 
binding, and  other  crafts  have  taken  its  place  in  Carthusian 
recreation.  The  cottage  contains  also  a  small  prayer- 
chamber  or  oratory,  a  sleeping  room,  a  living  room,  a  wood- 
store.  One  of  the  rooms  opens  to  a  little  outside  penthouse 
or  promenade  which  commonly  runs  the  length  of  the 
garden,  and  serves  for  the  exercise  of  the  monk.  For  the 
idea  that  he  perambulates  the  cloister  at  will  is  false.  He 
uses  the  cloister  arcade  only  as  a  passage  to  and  from  the 
church,  or  the  Refectory ;  for  the  occasional  visit  to  the 
barber's  shop  (Rasura),  and  for  the  way  out  to  his  "  spatia- 
mentum  "  or  weekly  walk  outside  the  monastery  wall,  the 
latter  being  the  only  occasion  on  which  free  speech  is  allowed 
him,  except  after  Refectory  on  Sundays  and  feast  days. 
The  little  50-foot  garden,  sometimes  beautifully  kept,  if 
gardening  be  his  pleasure,  is  for  the  monk  alone. 

The  Church  in  all  cases  either  abuts  on  the  Great 
Cloister  or  is  so  near  it  that  access  is  obtained  by  the  monks 
without  traversing  other  portions  of  the  monastery.  It  was 
in  all  the  early  monasteries,  and,  indeed,  it  may  be  said,  in 
all  north  of  the  Alps  and  the  Pyrenees  was  of  a  very  simple 
even  severe  character  as  befitted  an  order  whose  key-note 
is  "  Simplicitas."  The  normal  Carthusian  Church  is  a 
simple  choir,  without  nave  or  aisles.  Where  the  lay 
brothers  worship  in  the  same  church,  as  happens  in  most 
cases,  a  screen  divides  the  portion  nearest  the  high  altar, 
which  is  used  by  the  choir  monks  only,  from  the  other  end 
of  the  Church,  which  is  used  by  the  lay  brothers.  The 
choir  monks  enter  by  a  door  within  their  precinct,  the  lay 
brothers  entering  from  the  other  end.  The  screen,  usually 
some  10  feet  in  height,  has  a  door  in  the  middle  enabling  the 
lay  brothers  to  see  the  high  altar,  and  upon  their  side  of 
the  screen,  on  either  side  of  the  door,  are  found  a  pair  of 
altars,  dedicated  sometimes  to  St.  John  and  St.  Joseph,  to 
St.  Bruno  or  other  saint.  Strangers,  save  by  some  special 
exception,  were  not  admitted  to  the  monks'  portion  of  the 
Church,  which  was  reserved  for  themselves,  for  visitors  of 

*  The  certosina  work  common  in  North  Italy  is  so-called  from  its 
having  originated  in  Carthusian  cells. 


38  THE   CARTHUSIAN   RULE 

their  order,  Bishops,  and  ecclesiastics.  Usually,  therefore, 
there  was  a  place  reserved  elsewhere  for  strangers.  This 
was  sometimes  on  the  floor  in  rear  of  the  lay  brothers' 
portion  (as  at  Evora,  Xeres,  Seville),  but  more  often  in  a 
gallery  above,  as  at  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  at  the  modern 
San  Stefano  del  Bosco  (the  latter  built  by  French  monks 
on  the  model  of  the  former).  The  bell  was  swung  in  such  a 
position  that  each  monk  as  he  passed  in  from  the  great 
cloister  could  ring  it  till  his  place  was  taken  by  the  next 
comer.  There  was  no  organ,  Carthusian  services  being 
wholly  in  chanted  plain-song.  Excess  of  ornament,* 
stained  glass,  embellishment  of  choir  books  were  dis- 
couraged as  unfitting  in  the  stern  and  simple  worship  of 
the  Carthusian  order. 

In  seeking  for  the  features  of  a  Carthusian  Church 
in  our  own  Chapel  in  London,  on  which  later  ages 
have  piled,  though  reverently,  so  many  obliterating 
details,  it  is  very  interesting  to  be  able  to  unearth  the 
simple  plan  of  the  church — now  represented  by  the 
southern  bay  or  aisle — in  which  the  white  monks  worshipped. 
The  door  by  which  the  choir  monks  entered  has  disappeared, 
but  the  lay  brothers'  entry  may  be  seen  in  the  external 
southern  wall  (at  about  the  point  of  the  Preacher's  seat), 
and  the  dividing  screen  must  have  been  placed  just  east 
of  it.  The  position  of  the  strangers'  portion  is  uncertain. 
Some  find  it  in  the  little  vaulted  chamber,  now  the  Baptistry 
at  the  west.  I  am  myself  inclined  to  believe  that  it  was 
a  gallery  in  the  chamber  above,  now  the  Muniment  Room, 
which  in  those  days  may  have  been  open  to  the  Church. 

The  monks'  Refectory,  Freytor,  or  Frater,  was  also 
generally  accessible  by  easy  means  from  the  great  cloister, 
and  naturally  adjoined  the  kitchen.  It  was  used  only 

*  It  was  and  is  something  of  a  complaint  against  the  Italian  and 
Spanish  Charterhouses,  especially  those  which  came  into  existence 
in  the  days  of  the  Renaissance,  that  the  splendour  of  their  churches 
and  their  buildings,  as  at  the  Certosa  of  Pavia,  of  Naples,  of  Ferrara,  of 
Miraflores,  of  Borne,  contradicted  the  Carthusian  spirit  of  simplicity. 
It  is  only  just  to  remember  that  in  each  of  these  cases  the  monastery 
was  somewhat  at  the  mercy  of  its  splendour-loving  founder ;  and 
still  more  that,  whatever  the  magnificence  of  the  church  or  of  the 
building,  the  life  of  the  monk  in  the  cell  partook  not  of  it  but  remained 
as  austere  as  in  the  sterner  convents  of  the  north. 


THE    CARTHUSIAN    RULE  39 

on  Sundays  or  on  feast  days,  on  which  days  alone  the 
monks  fed  in  common,  yet  still  in  silence,  while  chapters 
of  the  Bible  were  read  aloud  from  a  pulpit  fixed  upon  the 
Refectory  wall.  In  Charterhouses  still  occupied  I  have 
always  found  that  the  tables  are  ranged  against  the  side 
walls,  the  Prior  occupying  the  central  position  at  a  cross 
table  at  the  end.  The  monks  sit  at  one  side  of  the  table 
only,  their  backs  to  the  wall.  In  monasteries  where  the 
lay  brothers  occupy  an  entirely  different  house,  "  Domus 
inferior  "  or  "  Correria "  (as  at  the  Grande  Chartreuse, 
where  it  was  situated  at  La  Courrerie,  a  little  distance  off), 
and  at  Witham  in  Somersetshire,  the  lay  brothers  dined  in 
their  own  house.  But  this  separation  of  houses  applies 
only  to  a  small  minority.  Where  the  lay  brothers'  quarters 
were  adjacent  to  the  rest,  as  in  London,  they  usually,  not 
invariably,  had  their  Refectory  in  the  same  room  as  the 
monks,  but  separated  from  them  by  a  partition.  They 
never  took  their  meals  in  common.  The  question  of  our 
own  Refectories  in  London  will  be,  however,  dealt  with  in  a 
later  chapter. 

The  Chapterhouse,  which  in  the  London  House  was 
to  the  east  of  the  church,  served  as  a  place  of  meeting  for  the 
Fathers  and  the  Prior.  Here  took  place  the  voting  on  the 
election  of  a  new  Prior,  or  the  admission  to  full  vows  of  a 
new  monk.  Here,  too,  addresses  were  given  by  the  Prior, 
for  sermons  were  not  delivered  in  a  Carthusian  Church. 
The  Sacristy  is  marked  in  the  plan  as  lying  on  the  north 
side  of  the  church,  with  which  there  was  communication. 

In  every  Charterhouse  there  was  also  a  little  cloister, 
"  Parvum  Claustrum,"  never  far  away  from  the  Great 
Cloister.  It  was  usually  surrounded  by  buildings,  and  in  all 
the  monasteries  which  I  have  examined — some  sixty  in 
number — it  had  an  arcade  around  it.  This  arcade  either 
carried  a  storey  above  it  (as  in  Rome,  Florence,  etc.),  or 
was  projected  under  a  penthouse  roof  into  the  area  of  the 
cloister.  And  no  doubt  one  of  these  methods  was  adopted 
in  our  own  Little  Cloister,  whose  position  approximately 
corresponds  to  the  present  "  Master's  Court."  In  our 
Charterhouse  the  Guesthouses  seem  to  have  been  on  the 


40  THE  CARTHUSIAN  RULE 

east  wing  of  this  cloister  (now  the  Master's  Lodge),  and, 
therefore,  as  in  most  other  *  instances,  it  was  very  near  the 
Gatehouse.  The  west  wing  of  the  Little  Cloister  (now  the 
Registrar's  House  and  part  of  the  kitchen)  were  the  quarters 
of  the  lay  brothers,  of  which  a  portion  still  survives  in  the 
buildings  around  "  Washhouse  Court."  Here  were  the 
"  obediences  "  of  the  lay  brothers — the  offices,  that  is, 
in  which  their  service  was  rendered.  There  was  a  wash- 
house  (now  in  the  lower  portion  of  the  Registrar's  House), 
a  long  workroom  along  the  west  side  (still  serving  its  purpose 
to-day,  but  divided  by  partitions),  a  bakehouse,  a  brew- 
house  (for  the  monastery,  of  course,  brewed  its  own  small 
beer),  and  a  fishhouse.  The  north-east  corner  of  this  little 
court  contained  the  kitchen  and  the  larder.  The  lay 
brothers'  quarters  were  once  of  much  greater  extent  than 
as  we  see  them  now,  and  beyond  them  lay  the  stables, 
barns  and  outhouses  (occupying  the  site  of  the  present 
brothers'  buildings  in  Preachers'  Court  and  Pensioners' 
Court).  The  monastery  fishpond,f  which  yielded  so  many 
"  great  carps  "  to  the  seekers  after  unconsidered  trifles  at 
the  dissolution,  lay  further  north  across  the  space  where  the 
north  wing  of  Pensioners'  Court  now  stands.  The  barber's 
shop  was,  in  the  early  monastery,  placed  in  the  Great 
Cloister  a  little  east  of  the  Chapterhouse,  but  was  probably 
moved  at  the  remodelling  of  the  monastery  in  Tynbygh's 
priorate  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  lay  brothers'  quarters. 
The  Gatehouse,  a  very  important  feature  of  any  monastery, 
occupied  the  position  of  the  present  Gatehouse,  and  the 
entrance  court  within  represents  the  space  often  found  in 
Charterhouses  intervening  between  the  Porter's  Lodge  and 
the  actual  conventional  buildings. 

In  the  plan  of  the  water  supply,  so  often  quoted,  we 
find  outside  the  Gatehouse  and  in  the  western  portion  of  the 
space  which  is  now  Charterhouse  Square,  a  building  marked 
as  "  Egypte  or  the  Fleshe  Kitchen."  This  building  has 
caused  much  questioning.  But  the  explanation  is  perhaps 
not  far  to  seek.  It  will  presently  be  shown  that  the  Donati 

*  At  Beau  vale  the  Guesthouse  adjoins  the  Gatehouse,  and  so, 
too.  at  Mount  Grace. 

t  See  Record  Office,  William  Dayle's  report. 


THE   CARTHUSIAN   RULE  41 

or  servants  of  the  monastery  (not  the  Conversi  or  lay 
brothers)  who  were  under  no  vows  and  merely  attached 
to  the  convent  by  a  civil,  or  perhaps  we  had  better  say,  a 
religious  contract,  were  allowed  to  eat  meat.  And  since 
this  could  not  be  used  nor  admitted  in  any  shape  inside 
the  gates,  it  was  to  be  procured  by  the  Donati — perhaps 
also  by  the  servants  and  retainers  of  those  who  came  to 
visit  the  monastery — in  this  outside  fleshe  kitchen,  just  as 
at  the  Grande  Chartreuse  a  place  of  refreshment  was  allowed 
outside  the  gates. 

To  the  north  of  the  buildings,  beyond  the  Great  Cloister 
and  the  monastery  barns,  lay  the  kitchen  garden  *  and 
orchard,  and  the  monk's  wilderness  or  wild  garden.  These 
lay,  the  former  where  now  is  found  "  The  Master's  Garden," 
the  latter  (though  the  boundaries  are  undefined)  more  to 
the  east  where  "  Under  Green,"  the  cricket  ground  of  the 
Under  School,  lay  in  the  days  of  the  school.f 

So  far  for  the  arrangements  of  the  monastery,  which 
repeat  themselves  with  but  slight  variation  as  to  size  and 
position  in  every  Charterhouse.  And  now  for  the  life  that 
is  lived  within  it. 

The  members  of  a  Charterhouse  are  of  three  grades  : 
first,  the  Professed,  or  Cloistered,  or  Choir  Monks — the 
Fathers  as  they  are  sometimes  called,  who  are  under  the 
fullest  and  strictest  vows  taken  after  a  long  probation  or 
novitiate,  who  never  leave  the  cloister  but  by  leave  of  the 
Prior ;  secondly,  the  Conversi  or  Lay  Brothers,  also  under 
vows  equally  strict  on  some  points,  but  less  so  upon  others, 
and  who  are  allowed  to  go  outside  the  Convent  without 
the  Prior's  leave  ;  and  thirdly,  the  Donati,  who  are  the 
servants  and  labourers  of  the  Convent,  under  no  vows,  but 
under  an  ordinary  contract. 

The  future  monk  is  not  admitted  to  novitiate  before  the 
age  of  eighteen,  and  the  greatest  pains  are  used  to  prevent 

*  The  hay  and  the  apples,  the  rosemary  and  the  rose  trees,  and 
the  bays  which  were  amongst  the  minor  spoils  of  the  monastery  in 
1537-9  will  occur  to  the  mind  of  the  reader. 

t  The  space  known  as  "Under  Green  "  is  now  entirely  built  over. 
The  road  lately  re-christened  as  Clerkenwell  Road  still  bore  in  the 
writer's  schooldays  the  name  of  Wilderness  Row.  Thackeray's 
first  schoolhouse,  No.  28,  still  exists  there. 


42  THE   CARTHUSIAN   RULE 

any  one  who  is  unfitted  by  temperament  or  even  by 
physique  for  the  severities  and  special  calls  of  the  Rule. 
The  postulant  must  be  able  to  chant  since  the  prayers  of 
the  Church  are  so  great  a  portion  of  his  duty,  and  he  must 
have  some  education  and  know  some  Latin  for  the  same 
reasons,  and  at  the  outset  he  is  of  intention  submitted  to  a 
month  of  severest  austerity,  and  the  statutes  enjoin  that 
he  shall  be  even  discouraged  and  that  the  trials  of  the  life 
shall  be  set  before  him  in  clearest  shape.  At  the  end  of  a 
month,  if  he  be  suitable,  he  is,  at  a  meeting  in  the  Chapter- 
house, admitted  to  Probation,  and  wears  the  white  habit  * 
during  his  novitiate,  and  lives  in  all  respects  the  life  of  the 
monk.  After  one  year  of  novitiate  he  is,  again  by  voice  of 
the  Chapter,  admitted  to  the  "  simple  vows  "  ;  and  not 
till  four  years  of  proved  fitness  have  followed  does  he 
finally  take  upon  him,  by  consent  of  the  Chapter,  the 
"  Solemn  vows  "  which  make  him  irrevocably  a  Carthusian. 
Before  this  time  he  has  been  free  to  retire  from  the  pro- 
bation. These  are  the  precautions  taken  by  the  order  to 
prevent  any  but  those  few  for  whom  the  profession  is 
possible  and  fitting,  from  entering  rashly  on  the  vows.  It 
may  be  doubted,  says  a  writer,  if  in  the  ordinary  pro- 
fessions of  life  men  often  have  such  opportunity  of  insight 
into  the  life  that  they  are  choosing,  or  such  means  of 
judging  of  their  fitness  for  it. 

The  ordinary  day  of  a  Carthusian  monk  in  summer  is 
divided  as  follows  : — 

5.45  a.m.  The  bell  of  his  cell  is  rung  from  outside  by 
the  monk  [Excitator],  who  wakes  the  cloister.  The  monk 
rises  and  says  the  first  office  in  his  cell. 

6.30  a.m.  The  second  Angelus  sounds.  [At  the  sound 
of  each  Angelus — there  are  four  in  the  day — the  monk  says 
three  Ave  Marias.] 

6.45  a.m.  The  monk  leaves  his  cell  and  goes  to  the 
church,  where  he  takes  his  place  in  his  stall,  and  kneels  in 
silent  prayer. 

*  The  habit  differs  only  from  that  of  the  full  monk  by  the  absence 
of  the  characteristic  fillets  or  bands  at  the  side  of  the  long  hood.  But 
the  novice  wears  over  it  a  black  cape. 


THE   CARTHUSIAN  RULE  43 

7  a.m.  The  Conventual  High  Mass. 

7.45  a.m.  (about).  Each  monk  (every  monk  is  an 
ordained  priest)  celebrates  his  private  Mass  in  one  of  the 
many  chapels.  [This  custom  does  not  seem  to  have 
belonged  to  the  earliest  days  of  the  order,  but  had  become 
the  rule  by  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  It 
explains  the  large  number  of  chapels  which  are  found  in 
some  Charterhouses,  since  it  was  necessary  for  each  monk 
to  celebrate  his  Mass  at  about  the  same  time.  In  London 
we  know  of  chapels  *  in  honour  of  St.  Anne,  1405  (at  the 
west  end  of  the  church,  south  side,  see  Chapter  VIII.),  the 
Holy  Trinity,  St.  Peter,  St.  Paul  (a  small  chapel  on  the 
south  side  of  the  Chapterhouse),  St.  Mary  Magdalene, 
1436  (apparently  opening  out  of  the  Little  Cloister,  St. 
John  the  Evangelist,  1437  (south  side  of  the  high  altar). 
St.  Katharine,  endowed  by  Sir  Robert  Rede,  founder  of 
the  Rede  Lectureships  hi  1520  (apparently  on  the  south 
side),  St.  Agnes  (on  the  north  side,  founded  1475  on  the 
site  of  the  earlier  parlour),  St.  Michael  and  St.  John  Baptist 
(north  side),  1453,  and  a  little  to  the  east  of  this,  St.  Jerome 
and  St.  Bernard,  1453.]  For  this  purpose  the  monks 
were  divided  in  pairs,  one  monk  celebrating  while  his 
companion  served.  The  order  was  then  reversed. 

8.45  or  9  a.m.  He  returns  to  his  cell  and  has  one  free 
hour.  He  uses  half  of  this  for  meditation,  half  for  recrea- 
tion (manual  labour). 

10  a.m.  Office  of  Sext  in  cell.  Two  lay  brothers  bring 
the  meal  of  the  day,  "  the  pittance,"  to  the  hatch,  and 
place  the  food  in  the  little  elbow-shaped  aperture,  whence 
it  is  removed  in  silence  by  the  monk. 

10  a.m.  to  12  noon.  The  meal  is  followed  by  free  time, 
in  which  the  monk  may  occupy  himself  in  manual  labour, 
gardening,  or  reading. 

12  noon.  The  third  Angelus  sounds  :  office  of  Nones  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  office  of  the  day  in  the  cell.  Free 
time  till  Vespers. 

*  The  list  of  chapels  given  in  M.S.M.I.  differs  in  very  slight  par- 
ticulars from  that  which  is  found  in  the  inventory  at  the  surrender. 
See  Appendix. 


44  THE  CARTHUSIAN   RULE 

2.30  p.m.  Vespers  of  Little  office  in  cell. 

2.45  p.m.  The  monk  leaves  his  cell  and  goes  to  the 
church. 

3.0  p.m.  Vespers  in  church  followed  by  the  office  of  the 
dead  [the  latter  is  not  used  on  Sundays  and  Feast  Days]. 

3.45  or  4  p.m.  Returns  to  cell. 

4.30  p.m.  Supper  [except  during  the  long  Carthusian 
fast  from  Sept.  14  to  Ash  Wednesday,  when  the  supper 
is  practically  absent,  or  consists  of  fragments  saved  by 
permission  from  the  early  meal.  During  Lent,  the  fast 
of  the  Church,  the  second  meal  is  also  very  meagre]. 

6.0  p.m.  The  fourth  Angelus,  Compline,  and  office  "  de 
Beata  Virgine  "  in  the  cell. 

After  this  the  monk  retires  to  rest,  very  early,  for  he  is 
again  aroused  at  10.45  p.m.  by  the  Excitator.  The  monk 
recites  the  Matins  and  Lauds  of  the  Virgin  and  prayers  for 
the  deliverance  of  the  Holy  Land  (prescribed  by  the  Lateran 
Council  of  1215). 

11.45  p.m.  The  monk  leaves  his  cell  for  the  third  time 
during  the  twenty-four  hours,  and,  lantern  in  hand,  goes  to 
the  church,  where  at  12  midnight  the  Matins  of  the  Great 
office  are  begun.  These  are  followed  by  the  Lauds  of  the 
office  of  the  Dead,  then  the  Canonical  Lauds  and,  lastly,  the 
Ave  Marias  of  the  first  Angelus  at  the  end  of  the  service, 
about  2  a.m.  or  2.15  a.m.,  when  the  monk  returns  to  his 
cell,  having  completed  the  round  of  one  single  day. 

In  winter  the  chief  meal  is  taken  at  11  a.m.  instead  of 
10  a.m.  On  Sundays  and  Chapter-feast-days  all  the  offices 
save  Complines  are  read  in  the  church,  and  on  these  days 
also  the  monks  take  their  chief  meal  together  in  the 
Refectory,  during  which  time  silence  is  kept,  and  a  monk 
reads  chapters  from  the  Bible. 

The  monk  lives  in  silence,  which  is  only  broken  when  he 
chants  in  church,  and  on  the  one  day  in  the  week,  when 
after  the  morning  meal  a  walk  of  some  three  hours  is  allowed 
outside  the  monastery.  Also  on  Sundays  after  the  meal 
before  Vespers.  Again  when  the  Prior  or  Vicar  visits  him 
in  his  cell  or  summons  him  to  the  Parlour  (Locutorium). 
The  rest  is  silence.  If  a  monk  meets  another  or  a  visitor 


THE    CARTHUSIAN   RULE  45 

in  the  cloister  he  pulls  his  cowl  lower  over  his  face,  and 
bowing  his  head  passes  without  speech. 

The  monk  owns  no  property.  Everything  that  he  has 
belongs  to  the  monastery,  even  to  the  staff  on  which  he 
walks,  if  feeble.  He  may  accept  no  gift.  He  may  not 
enter  on  any  enterprise — may  not,  for  example,  write  a 
book  without  permission.  His  life  is  total  surrender. 
When  he  enters  the  cloister  he  leaves  behind  his  very  name 
and  is  known  "  in  Religion  "  by  a  new  name. 

The  Lay  Brothers  or  Fratres  Conversi,  like  the  monks, 
serve  a  severe  novitiate  of  a  year,  but  cannot  take  their 
solemn  final  vows  till  eleven  years  have  passed.  The  Nova 
Statuta  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  at  a  time  when  there 
were  eleven  monks  in  the  Great  Cloister,  limited  the  number 
of  Conversi  to  sixteen,  and  this  was  probably  the  number 
in  our  Charterhouse.  They  lived  under  the  same  rules  of 
abstinence  and  of  general  life,  but  were  not  housed  in  the 
Great  Cloister.  Each  lay  brother  had  his  own  cell  or  room — 
not  a  cottage  in  a  garden,  like  the  monk — in  another  part 
of  the  monastery.  In  some  of  the  earlier  houses,  as  at 
the  Grande  Chartreuse,  the  lay  brothers  lived  in  a  separate 
house,  called  Aula  Inferior,  or  sometimes  Correria,  after 
La  Courrerie,  at  some  distance  away,  and  in  that  case  they 
had  their  own  refectory  (as  indeed  they  sometimes  did  when 
they  were  housed  within  the  monastery)  and  chapel,  and 
the  Procurator  acted  as  their  Chaplain  and  Confessor. 
Their  duties  calling  them  often  to  occupations  outside  the 
walls,  they  were  allowed  to  go  without  special  permission 
from  the  Prior.  In  the  British  Museum  is  a  MS.  of  rules 
for  the  lay  brothers  of  Shene.  It  is,  however,  in  the  main 
merely  an  English  translation  of  the  orders  of  Guigo.  The 
directions  are  most  minute  and  often  very  curious.  The 
Kitchener — a  very  important  brother,  who  is  also  in  charge 
of  the  gate— is  to  avoid  waste,  and  if  guilty  of  it  to  make 
confession  prostrate.  The  Shoemaker  greases  the  shoes  of 
the  monks,  but  is  on  no  account  to  grease  those  of  the 
Conversi.  The  Master  Shepherd  is  enjoined  to  avoid  all 
oaths,  lies,  and  frauds  which  are  wont  to  attend  such 
business.  Also  the  shepherds  are  to  keep  silence  when 

E 


46  THE   CARTHUSIAN  RULE 

milking.  The  duties  of  the  Baker,  Carpenter,  Smith, 
Gardener,  Barber,  are  also  set  forth,  and  few  contingencies 
of  their  crafts  seem  to  have  been  unprovided  for.  There  is  a 
shrewdness  running  through  the  directions  which  makes 
them  very  interesting  reading. 

The  Donati  were,  as  already  explained,  the  labourers 
and  workmen  attached  to  the  monastery,  not  under  vows, 
and  allowed  to  eat  flesh  and  to  go  about  their  business 
outside,  though  under  the  orders,  of  course,  of  the  foreman 
Brother  of  their  special  department  and  of  the  Procurator. 
The  grades  of  Redditi  and  Prebendarii,  which  seem  to  have 
been  subdivisions  of  the  Conversi,  slightly  beneath  them, 
have  long  ceased  to  be  reckoned  in  the  order. 

The  Carthusian  diet  is  absolutely  without  flesh.  Even 
for  visitors  it  is  not  allowed  within  the  convent.  Nor  in 
the  case  of  sickness  is  any  exception  made.  Eggs,  fish, 
fruit,  bread,  vegetables,  with  milk  and  cheese,  with  wine, 
if  it  be  a  wine  country,  and  with  beer,  if  it  be  not,  is  all 
that  is  allowed  at  their  two  daily  meals.  And  no  rule  is 
stricter  than  that  which  forbids  flesh  meat.  A  breach  of  it 
means  expulsion  from  the  order.  The  Carthusian  uses 
neither  tea  nor  coffee  nor  tobacco.  And  yet  on  this  diet 
alike  for  Monks  and  Conversi  the  evidence  all  down  the 
centuries  is  ample  that  health  and  long  life  results.  The 
world  outside  might  wisely  take  a  lesson  of  health  from  the 
fact.  When  in  the  fourteenth  century  Urban  V,  who 
troubled  himself  not  a  little  about  Carthusian  severities, 
sought  to  abolish  the  restriction  against  flesh,  the  Carthu- 
sians, failing  in  other  arguments,  sent  a  deputation  of 
twenty-five  hale  old  men  whose  ages  ranged  from  eighty 
years  to  near  upon  a  hundred.  The  argument  prevailed. 

No  woman  was  allowed  within  a  Charterhouse.  Guigo 
quaintly  gives  reason  for  this  regulation.  He  explains 
that  since  none  of  the  human  race,  wise  men,  philosophers, 
prophets,  judges,  not  Solomon,  David,  Samson,  Lot,  nor 
any  that  have  taken  themselves  wives  of  their  choice — 
Adam,  too,  may  come  into  our  mind,  says  he — "  and  since 
no  man  can  take  fire  into  his  bosom  without  being  burnt, 


47 

nor  touch  pitch  without  being  defiled,  therefore  we  on  no 
account  allow  women  to  enter  our  borders  so  far  as  in  us 
lies."  In  1483,  when  Isabel  the  Catholic  made  her  second 
visit  to  Burgos,  before  entering  the  town  she  turned  aside 
to  the  Cartuja  of  Miraflores,  where  its  founder,  her  father, 
Juan  II,  had  been  buried  in  the  choir  twenty-nine  years 
before.  But  though  Miraflores  owed  its  existence  to  her 
father  and  its  continuance  and  prosperity  to  herself  the 
Prior  met  her  outside  and  refused  her  entrance.  Then  he 
caused  the  coffin  to  be  brought  forth,  and  in  the  square 
outside,  the  poor  remains  of  mortality  were,  in  true  Spanish 
fashion,  laid  open  to  the  view  of  the  Queen. 

At  an  earlier  date,  in  1417,  the  more  concessive  Prior 
of  Portes,  near  Lyon,  had  allowed  Isabel  of  Bavaria,  Queen 
of  France,  wife  of  Charles  VI,  to  enter  his  convent  and  to 
eat  a  meal  there,  for  which  breach  of  rule  he  was  deposed 
from  his  office  and  made  to  do  five  or  six  days  of  abstinence 
on  bread  and  water.*  In  later  times  it  has  been  enacted  by 
the  General  Chapter  (which  meets  at  the  Mother-House) 
that  the  family  of  the  reigning  sovereign  of  the  land  may 
enter  with  letters  from  the  Pope.  This  does  not  apply  to 
the  admission  of  the  sovereign  of  any  other  land — (as,  for 
example,  Queen  Victoria  at  the  Grande  Chartreuse) — 
which  needs  a  special  dispensation.  The  very  strange 
exception  during  the  early  years  of  the  London  House  will 
be  explained  in  the  next  chapter. 

The  dress  of  the  Carthusians  was,  at  the  time  of  its 
origin,  merely  adapted  from  the  ordinary  dress  in  which  the 
shepherd  and  woodman  of  the  mountains  of  Dauphine  went 
about  their  work.  The  monk  wears  a  hair  shirt  with  a 
second  coarse  shirt  over  it,  and  stockings  of  thick  white 
homespun  and  leather  shoes.  He  wears  also  a  long  tunic 

*  An  interesting  case  was  that  of  Isabella  d'Este,  wife  of  Gian 
Francesco,  Duke  of  Mantua,  who,  visiting  her  sister  Beatrice,  wife  of 
Lodovico  Sforza,  at  Milan,  made  the  Certosa  of  Pavia  one  of  the 
stages  of  her  journey.  The  monks,  much  against  their  will,  were  made 
by  Lodovico  to  entertain  them.  By  what,  means  that  gay  assemblage 
of  courtiers  and  ladies  was  housed  and  fed  without  breach  of  rule  is 
not  known  to  the  writer.  The  poor  monks  afterwards  complained 
that  they  had  been  eaten  out  of  house  and  home  and  compensation 
was  made. 


48  THE   CARTHUSIAN   RULE 

of  strong  white  stuff  down  to  the  feet.  It  has  broad  sleeves 
with  deep  cuffs,  and  is  fastened  round  the  waist  with  a 
white  leather  belt.  The  upper  garment  (the  cucullus)  is 
a  double  chasuble-shaped  cape  of  white  stuff  open  at  each 
side,  but  joined  at  the  bottom  by  a  fillet  or  band — a  very 
distinctive  feature  in  Carthusian  dress.  The  upper  part 
of  this  garment  is  a  hood  which  can  be  drawn  over  the  head 
at  need.  When  the  monk  has  to  go  away  from  his  convent 
he  wears  a  black  mantle  over  his  habit  and  a  black  priest's 
broad-brimmed  hat.  No  linen  garment  is  worn  either  by 
monk  or  lay  brother. 

The  Lay  Brothers  or  Conversi  wear  almost  the  same 
dress  as  the  monks  in  church,  but  without  the  bands,  and 
their  upper  mantle  when  they  go  abroad  is  of  brown  stuff 
instead  of  black. 

The  Donati  or  monastery  servants  wear  an  upper  coat 
or  tunic  with  a  hood  of  dark  brown  or  chestnut,  girt  at  the 
waist  and  worn  short  to  the  knee,  for  practical  use  in  labour. 
It  is  merely  a  useful  labourer's  dress  distinctive  enough  to 
mark  their  special  calling. 

The  monks  are  shaven  both  face  and  head,  save  for  a 
narrow  circle  of  hair  about  the  crown.  The  lay  brothers 
shave  the  head  but  wear  the  beard.  The  Donati  are 
not  shaved,  but  are  expected  to  wear  their  hair  close 
cut. 

The  officers  of  a  normal  convent  are  as  follows  : — 

1.  A  Prior,  who  is  elected  by  the  Convent  Chapter  four 
days  after  the  death  of  his  predecessor — and  generally, 
though  not  necessarily,  from  the  monks  of  the  same  cloister. 
His  habit  and  his  life  differ  in  no  respect  from  that  of  any 
other  monk,  except  that  he  does  not  generally  live  in  a  cell 
of  the  Great  Cloister  itself,  but  has  a  lodging  outside  of  it. 
He  is  "  Prior  inter  pares,"  and  once  when  Urban  V  pressed 
the  order  to  allow  their  convents  to  be  ruled  by  Abbots  and 
Mitred  Abbots  they  firmly  and  wisely  refused  a  privilege 
which  would  have  inevitably  drawn  the  order  into  outer 
and  political  life. 

2.  The  Vicar,  who  ranks  next  to  the  Prior,  and  exercises 
the  functions  of  the  latter  in  his  absence,  or  if  he  be  sick, 


A    LAY    BROTHER    (CONVERSUS),    MIRAFLORES. 


A  WORKER  (DONATUS),  MIRAFLORES. 


THE   CARTHUSIAN    RULE  49 

or  in  the  interval  following  a  Prior's  death.     The  office  is, 
however,  not  used  in  all  Charterhouses. 

3.  The  Procurator  or  Proctor,  who  is  the  Steward  or 
Bursar  of  the  monastery  and  has  entire  control,  subject  to 
the  Prior,  over  all  the  property  and  revenues  of  the  convent. 
He  supervises  the  work  of  the  lay  brothers   and  Donati 
and  is  their  chaplain,  living  in  the  Lower  House  or  Correria 
with  them  if  there  be  one.     If  not  he  generally  lives  for 
convenience  outside  of  the  Great  Cloister.     At  the  present 
Mother  House  at  Farneta,  where  there  is  much  business, 
there  are  two  procurators. 

4.  The  Novice  Master,  a  monk  appointed  for  the  train- 
ing of  the  novices  if  there  are  any. 

5.  The  Sacristan,  a  monk  who  has  charge  of  the  church 
and  chapels,  vestments  and  vessels.     His  cell  generally 
adjoins  the  church. 

Before  closing  this  chapter  it  is  right  to  pause  a  moment 
and  ask  what  was  and  is  the  point  of  view  of  the  Carthusian 
with  regard  to  the  cloistered  life.  It  can  be  no  part  of  such 
a  book  as  this  either  to  approve  or  to  condemn  the  principle 
of  it.  But  it  is  right  to  try  to  realise  the  position  which 
they  seem  to  hold,  which  perhaps  may  be  stated  thus. 
Holding,  as  they  do,  with  other  Christians,  that  prayer  is  a 
mighty  engine  for  the  good  of  mankind,  to  which  no  other 
force  is  comparable,  they  go  forward  to  the  view  that  prayer 
to  be  most  efficacious  should  be  offered  so  far  as  possible  by 
men  in  nearest  communion  with  God — the  effectual  fervent 
prayer  which  avails  much  being  that  of  a  righteous  man. 
And  this  communion — here  we  come  to  their  real  standing 
ground — can  only  be  secured  in  their  opinion  by  those  who 
separate  themselves  from  the  cares,  pleasures,  distractions 
of  the  world  by  living  a  life  of  isolation  in  close  commune 
with  God.  They  do  not  assert  that  such  a  life  is  possible 
to  all  men,  or  to  most  men,  hardly  even  to  many  men,  but 
for  the  selected  few  whose  vocation  it  is.  For  these  it  is 
the  sacred  way  of  benefiting  their  fellows,  living  and  dead, 
by  the  force  of  prayer  continually  offered  day  and  night 
by  men  who  have  denied  themselves  everything  but  that. 


50  THE    CARTHUSIAN    RULE 

It  remains  only  to  say  that,  however  impossible  to  many 
temperaments  the  life  may  seem,  the  evidence  is  incontest- 
able that  with  the  care  which  is  exercised  in  admission  to 
the  order,  the  Carthusian  monk  is  very  happy  in  his  cloister. 
And  it  may  be  claimed  as  a  mere  matter  of  history,  that 
no  order  has  been  truer  to  its  purpose  and  more  faithful  to 
its  vows.  The  old  saying  about  it,  "  Nunquam  re-formata 
quia  nunquam  deformata,"  has  passed  into  a  platitude. 
It  has  throughout  the  800  years  of  its  existence  been  free 
from  scandal  and  without  reproach.  And  more  than  this. 
Though  it  might  seem  that  a  body  of  men  separated  from 
outside  human  company  within  a  cloister  could  be  little 
useful  to  the  secular  interests  of  a  neighbourhood,  yet 
it  is  a  fact  that  wherever  a  Charterhouse  has  been  estab- 
lished— and,  as  we  have  seen,  they  have  mostly  sought 
the  waste  places  of  earth — they  have,  by  their  wise  manage- 
ment and  broadminded  benevolence,  brought  blessings  and 
prosperity  to  the  outside  population.*  Certainly  it  has 
been  no  spirit  of  idleness  or  uselessness,  no  spirit  of  sloth  or 
incapacity  for  the  work  of  life,  that  has  spread  itself  forth 
from  these  homes  of  silence  and  of  solitude. 


CARTHUSIAN  FOUNDATIONS  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

1178-81.  1.  Witham,  near  Selwood  Forest,  Somerset. 
Founder,  Henry  II  (in  expiation  of  the  murder  of 
Thomas  a  Becket).  For  twelve  monks  and  a 
Prior.  Dedication  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  St. 
John  Baptist.  Revenuesat  dissolution,  £215  15s. 
p.a.  Present  use :  the  Lay  Brothers'  church 
is  the  Parish  Church.  Some  buildings  of  the 
monastery  remain. 

Before  1250.  IB.  A  Cell  of  Witham  at  Mendeep,  i.e.  on  the 
Mendip  Hills,  Somerset,  near  Cheddar  Cliffs. 

*  The  Grande  Chartreuse  itself  may  be  quoted.  It  founded 
schools,  built  churches,  bridges,  hospitals,  made  roads,  encouraged 
the  industries — chiefly  foundries — of  the  district,  and  on  the  testi- 
mony of  an  extreme  radical  in  the  French  Chamber,  brought 
nothing  but  advantage  to  what  had  been  once  the  wildest  district 
of  Dauphine. 


ENGLISH    CHARTERHOUSES  51 

Now  called  Charterhouse,  Cheddar,  and  by  a 
deed  of  Henry  III,  in  1250,  called  The  New 
Chartreuse  of  Mendeep.  Now  a  farmhouse. 

1127-32.  2.  Hinton,  Somerset,  "  Locus  Dei."  Foundress, 
Ela  Countess  of  Salisbury,  by  charter  of  1227, 
but  the  original  foundation  had  been  made  in 
1222  at  Hethrop  (Heatherop  or  Hatherop),  in 
Gloucestershire,  by  her  husband,  William 
Longespee  (buried  in  Salisbury  Cathedral), 
natural  son  of  Henry  II.  For  twelve  monks 
and  a  Prior.  Dedication  to  the  Blessed  Virgin, 
St.  John  Baptist  and  all  Saints.  Revenues  at 
dissolution,  £262  13s.  Present  use :  a  private 
dwelling.  There  are  considerable  remains  of 
the  monastery. 

1280  ?  3.  A  Charterhouse  in  Ireland.  Place,  founder,  and 
dedication  unknown.  Suppressed  in  1321  by 
the  General  Chapter  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse. 

1343.  4.  Beauvale,  Beaver,  Beggarlee,  near  Gresley, 
Nottinghamshire.  "  Pulchra  Vallis."  Founder, 
Sir  Nicholas  de  Cantelupe  (Cantlow),  buried  in 
the  retro-choir,  Lincoln  Cathedral.  For  twelve 
monks  and  a  Prior.  Dedication  to  St.  Nicholas. 
Revenues  at  dissolution,  £227  85.  Present  use : 
a  farmhouse  attached  to  a  private  dwelling. 
Large  and  interesting  remains  of  the  monastic 
buildings. 

1371.  5.  Charterhouse,  near  Smithfield,  London.  "  The 
House  of  the  Salutation  of  the  Mother  of  God, 
near  London."  Founder,  Sir  Walter  de  Manny. 
For  twenty-four  monks  and  a  Prior.  Dedica- 
tion to  the  Blessed  Virgin  of  the  Annunciation. 
Revenues  at  dissolution,  £642  4s.  6d.  Present 
use :  Sutton's  Hospital. 

1378.  6.  Charterhouse,  Kingston-upon-Hull,  sometimes 
known  even  in  pre-reformation  days  as 
"  Charterhouse  Hospital."  Founder,  Michael 
de  la  Pole,  in  conjunction  with  a  Hospital  for 
thirteen  poor  men  and  thirteen  poor  women 


52  THE    CARTHUSIAN    RULE 

and  a  master.  Dedication  to  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  St.  Michael  and  all  saints.  Revenues 
at  dissolution,  £174  18s.  3d.  Present  use :  a 
hostel  for  old  men  and  old  women  with  a  master. 

1381.  7.  St.  Anne's,  Shortleyfield,  Coventry.  Founder, 
William  Lord  Zouche,  of  Haryngworth.  First 
stone  laid  by  Richard  II  (who  desired  to  be 
considered  its  founder).  For  twelve  monks  and 
a  Prior.  Dedication  to  St.  Anne.  Revenues  at 
dissolution,  £201  7s.  6%d.  Present  use :  a 
dwelling-house. 

1383  ?  7B.  Totnes,  Devon.  A  small  house  of  Benedictine 
monks  was  changed  by  William  de  la  Zouche 
(see  above)  into  a  Carthusian  Priory,  but 
restored  to  the  Benedictines  in  1386. 

1397.  8.  Axholme,  Lincolnshire,  at  Lower  Melwood,  near 
Epworth.  "The  Priory  in  the  Wood." 
Founder,  Thomas  Mowbray  Earl  of  Mowbray 
(afterwards  Duke  of  Norfolk  and  Earl  Marshal 
in  right  of  his  mother).  Known  to  the  General 
Chapter  as  "  the  Charterhouse  of  Axholme." 
Intended  for  thirty  monks  and  a  Prior,  but 
probably  never  exceeded  twelve  monks  and  a 
Prior.  Dedication  to  the  Visitation  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin,  St.  John  the  Evangelist,  St. 
Edward,  King  and  Confessor.  Revenues  at 
dissolution,  £237  15s.  2f  d.  Present  use  :  a  farm. 
Small  remaining  portions  of  the  monastery. 

1397  ?  9.  Mount  Grace,  in  the  parish  of  East  Harsley, 
near  Osmotherly  and  Northallerton,  Yorkshire. 
Founder,  Thomas  Holand  Duke  of  Surrey  by 
license  of  Richard  II.  Cells  for  fourteen  monks 
and  a  Prior.  Dedication,  originally  to  the 
Blessed  Virgin  and  St.  Nicholas,  but  afterwards 
to  "  The  Assumption  of  the  most  Blessed 
Virgin."  Revenues  at  dissolution,  £382  5s.  11  \d. 
Present  use  :  a  dwelling-house.  Very  large  and 
interesting  remains  of  the  monastery.  The  best 
in  England. 


ENGLISH   CHARTERHOUSES  53 

1414.  10.  Shene,  Richmond,  Surrey.  Founder,  Henry  V. 
Cells  in  Great  Cloister  for  thirty  monks  and  a 
Prior.  Dedication  to  Jesus  of  Bethlehem. 
Revenues  at  dissolution,  £800  5s.  4|d.  In 
1557  (Jan.)  the  monks  were  replaced  by  Queen 
Mary  with  Maurice  Chauncy  as  Prior,  but  went 
into  exile  on  the  succession  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 
Present  use:  the  buildings  of  the  monastery 
have  wholly  disappeared.  The  name  survived 
in  **  Charterhouse  Coppice "  till  within  a 
recent  period. 

1429.  11.  Perth.  "  Charterhouse  of  the  Vale  of  Virtues." 
Founder,  James  I  *  of  Scotland,  the  Poet  Bang. 
Number  of  cells  unknown.  Destroyed  by  the 
mob  in  the  days  of  John  Knox,  1559.  Present 
use,  James  VI's  Hospital  or  Hostel,  let  in 
tenements  to  the  aged  poor. 

Note. — The  numbers  quoted  in  this  list  give  merely  the 
number  of  cells  for  choir  monks  in  the  Great  Cloister  ;  but 
in  many  cases  the  number  of  monks  accommodated  was 
larger,  as  at  Shene. 

*  James  I  was  buried  in  the  Charterhouse,  but  the  statement 
(embodied  in  Rossetti's  poem,  "  The  King's  Tragedy  ")  that  his 
murder  in  1437  took  place  there  is  incorrect.  He  and  his  court  were 
at  the  Blackfriars  Monastery,  where  he  was  murdered  by  Sir  Robert 
Graham  and  his  fellows. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   STORY   OF   OUR   MONASTERY   FROM    1371 

WE  may  now  return  to  the  internal  history  of  the  House, 
which  we  left  at  the  point  when,  after  its  dedication  on 
Mar.  25,  1371,  John  Luscote  as  Prior  with  his  six  choir 
monks  (the  number  seven  was  probably  not  an  accident) 
and  one  lay  brother  entered  into  possession  of  the  few 
cells  which  had  arisen  upon  the  west  wing,  and  perhaps 
partly  on  the  north  wing  of  the  future  Great  Cloister.* 
We  saw  the  Founder,  Manny,  laid  to  his  rest  in  the  convent 
church  in  the  January  of  the  next  year,  1372.  And  from 
that  time  the  House  progressed,  but  by  no  means  with  the 
rapidity  which,  not  unnaturally,  most  writers  have  assumed 
for  it.  We  know  now  from  the  monk's  manuscript 
(M. S.M.I.),  which  we  shall  have  to  quote  so  largely,  that 
at  the  death  of  John  Luscote  in  June,  1398,  the  monastery 
was  still  unfinished.  For  after  enumerating  the  cells  and 
their  founders  the  compiler  says  :— 

"  All  the  aforesaid  cells  were  not  built  and  scarcely 
founded  in  the  beginning  of  the  first  foundation.  Nor 
even  in  the  days  of  the  Venerable  Father  Danf  John 
Luscote,  who  remained  Prior  for  the  space  of  27  \  years ; 
for  after  his  death,  which  we  believe  to  have  been  happy, 
five  or  six  cells,  the  chapterhouse,  with  the  remaining 
chapels  built  beside  the  church,  the  frater,  the  pharmacy, 
the  parlor,  the  pavement  and  ceiling  of  the  cloister,  the 

*  It  will  help  the  reader  if  he  remembers  that  the  Great  Cloister 
represents  "  Upper  Green "  in  Charterhouse  School  days :  now 
Merchant  Taylors  playground. 

t  Dan  is  the  old  English  equivalent  of  Dom  =  Dominus. 

54 


THE    MONASTERY  55 

conduit,  an  enclosure  of  strong  walls  to  strengthen  and 
surround  the  whole  House,  and  various  other  things 
remained  to  be  built  and  made." 

We  find  another  passage  to  the  same  effect,  with, 
however,  an  addition  so  important  that  it  needs  to  be 
quoted  in  full : — 

"  And  although  they  have  nineteen  most  beautiful 
cells  built  and  occupied,  there  yet  remain  to  be  built  five 
or  six  cells,  and  the  chapterhouse,  frater,  pharmacy, 
parlor,  and  the  Chapel  of  St.  Anne  now  just  begun,  with 
the  intention  that  women  may  hear  masses  there  and  so 
gradually  be  excluded  from  the  church.  A  barrier  of 
strong  walls  to  surround  as  a  river  all  the  House,  the 
pavement  of  the  Greater  Cloister  with  its  ceiling,  the 
church  also  to  be  enlarged,  and  many  other  things  remain 
to  be  made  and  built,  so  that  the  sum  of  the  expenses  so 
far  incurred,  according  to  common  estimate,  amount  to 
1750£  sterling  and  more." 

This  passage  is  of  great  interest  from  several  points  of 
view.  First,  though  the  compilation  was  made  not  earlier 
than  1480,  and  perhaps  later,  the  use  of  the  present  tense, 
and  the  words  "  now  just  begun  "  show  that  the  compiler 
copied  out  his  extract  verbatim  from  a  record  made  eighty 
years  earlier.  But  the  chief  interest  lies  in  the  statement 
that  hitherto  women  had  not  been  excluded  from  a 
Carthusian  church.  The  causes,  both  of  this  and  of  the 
unenclosed  state  of  the  Priory,  are  not  far  to  seek.  The 
London  Charterhouse  took  shape  at  the  hour  of  a  great 
crisis  in  the  history  of  the  country.  The  Black  Death, 
with  its  sequence  of  lesser  plagues,  had  left  behind  it  much 
misery  and  that  demoralisation  which  has  always  gone 
with  and  after  such  visitations.  And  the  long  French 
wars,  perpetually  calling  away  the  picked  manhood  of  the 
country,  had  filled  up  the  cup  of  bitterness  for  the  working 
classes.  The  entire  absorption  of  the  King  and  his  nobles 
in  these  wars,  to  the  neglect  of  the  social  condition  of  the 
country,  had  led  to  over-taxation,  to  misgovernment,  to 
anarchy.  The  condition  of  London  was  hardly  better 


56  OUR  MONASTERY  FROM   1371 

than  that  of  the  country.  The  municipal  government  of 
London  repeated  all  the  evil  features  of  the  kingly  misrule. 
The  city  rulers  were  divided  into  two  camps,  headed 
respectively  by  John  of  Northampton,  representing  the 
smaller  companies,  and  in  a  sense  the  commonalty,  and 
the  party  of  the  all-powerful  monopoly  of  the  Fishmongers' 
Company,  under  Nicholas  Brembre.  And  armed  bands 
met  in  open  strife  in  the  streets  of  London  to  the  paralysis 
of  its  trade.  It  was  all  over  England,  but  especially  in 
London  and  in  the  counties  lying  nearest  to  it,  a  period 
of  seething  unrest.  The  populace,  both  in  town  and 
country,  looked  with  growing  hatred  and  suspicion  at  the 
religious  orders,  whom  they  regarded  as  in  some  sort 
locked  up  with  the  interests  of  the  wealthier  classes.  The 
influence  of  Wiclif  and  his  followers  accentuated  the 
feeling.  The  teaching  of  John  Ball  was  typical  of  the 
growing  spirit.  And  at  such  a  moment  the  attempted 
closing  of  a  large  area  of  ground  which  the  commonalty 
had  come  to  believe  was  theirs  by  right  prescriptive  was 
bound  to  create  a  threatening  attitude  towards  the  new 
Charterhouse  in  Smithfield,  regarded  as  the  playground  of 
the  London  prentice.  It  becomes  plain,  as  we  read  the 
record,  that  the  new  foundation  in  its  first  thirty  years 
met  with  difficulties  which,  if  faced  by  a  less  forceful  man 
than  Luscote,  would,  perhaps,  have  ended  in  the  failure 
of  the  monastery.  Apart  from  the  opposition  of  the 
leading  ecclesiastics,  unknown  to  us  by  name,  which 
probably  cooled  the  ardour  of  possible  supporters  and 
checked  the  stream  of  bequests,  the  Prior,  fearless  man  as 
he  was,  dared  not  carry  out  the  complete  exclusion  which 
the  rules  of  the  order  required.  For  twenty-three  years 
after  the  Black  Death,  before  the  little  church  which  stood 
in  that  mournful  God's  acre,  had  become  a  Carthusian 
church,  the  people,  men  and  women,  mothers,  wives, 
sisters,  had  resorted  to  the  little  building  day  and  night 
to  pray  for  the  souls  of  their  lost  ones.  And  the  people 
were  in  no  mood  to  be  shut  out  from  a  use  that  had  grown  so 
dear  to  them.  Luscote  did  not  dare  to  excite  a  mob  that 
from  time  to  time  showed  itself  ready  for  deeds  so  dangerous. 


DOOR  OF  B  CELL:   WEST  WALL  OF  GREAT  CLOISTER.     1371. 


CELL    DOOR   IX   EAST   WALL    GREAT    CLOISTER.       1371. 


THE    MONASTERY  57 

The  story,  however,  had  better  be  told  from  the  manuscript. 
After  describing  a  riot  "  about  this  time  "  (that  is,  before 
the  middle  of  1371),  on  Maunday  Thursday  and  Good 
Friday,  when  the  mob  attacked  St.  Paul's,  and  did  great 
injury,  the  story  goes  on  : — 

"  On  the  Monday  before  Ascension  Day,  1371,  that 
same  good  William  (Walworth)  came  to  the  said  church 
of  the  New  Foundation  of  the  Mother  of  God  and  two 
priests  with  him  ready  to  celebrate  with  sundry  others. 
Prior  Luscote  met  him.  On  that  day  William  Walworth 
laid  the  foundation  of  his  first  cell,*  and  upon  the  stone  he 
placed  20  shillings  sterling  as  a  solacium  to  the  workmen. 
He  also  heard  two  masses,  and  so  went  with  God's  protection 
to  the  Hall,f  whither  the  citizens  had  been  coming.  .  .  . 
That  day,  after  entertaining  the  Mayor  of  the  City  and  the 
alderman  into  his  house  .  .  .  they  went  out  to  the  Tower 
of  London  with  those  who  had  been  given  into  custody  for 
the  aforesaid  sedition,  and  so  having  put  them  in  prison, 
the  tumult  ceased  .  .  .  who  having  been  beaten  and  not 
killed  after  a  little  time  by  the  mediation  of  the  said  William 
Walworth  and  other  good  men  they  were  brought  out  of 
prison  and  restored  to  their  own.  Blessed  be  God.  .  .  . 
Afterwards  the  said  William  built  four  other  cells,  and 
gave  of  his  own  goods  and  of  the  goods  of  John  Lovekyn  f 
aforesaid  1000  marks  sterling,  and  many  good  things  § 
both  in  his  life  and  after  his  death  he  bestowed  on  this 
House.  Moved  also  by  his  example  and  fervour  a  certain 
very  rich  citizen,  Adam  Fraunceys  by  name,  sometime 
Mayor  of  London,  a  man  much  given  to  almsgiving,  built 
another  five  cells  for  the  construction  of  which  he  gave 
1000  marks  sterling,"  etc.,  etc. 

*  This  is  easily  identified  as  cell  B,  whose  door  and  hatch  are 
still  visible  in  the  portion  of  the  west  wall  in  the  arcade  still  known 
as  "  cloisters." 

t  This  was  probably  the  Guildhall,  Walworth  being  sheriff  that 
year. 

t  John  Lovekyn,  Lord  Mayor  in  1348,  58,  65,  66,  founder  of 
Fishmongers'  Hall,  died  1365.  Walworth  had  been  his  apprentice 
and  became  bis  executor. 

§  We  learn  also  that  though  Sir  Walter  de  Manny  founded 
Cell  A,  now  no  longer  visible,  since  it  disappeared  when  the  Monks' 
Refectory  took  its  place,  yet  Walworth  bore  half  the  expense  of  the 
cell. 


58  OUR   MONASTERY   FROM   1371 

The  riot  alluded  to  occurred,  it  will  be  seen,  in  1371, 
and  was  due  solely  to  the  populace  of  London.  But  ten 
years  later,  in  1381,  at  the  great  peasant  rising  when  the 
men  of  Kent,  of  Essex,  and  the  eastern  counties  converged 
upon  London,  and  the  mob  held  the  town  for  two  days, 
Wat  Tyler's  lieutenant,  Jack  Straw,  laid  the  Priory  of  St. 
John  of  Jerusalem — the  home  of  the  hated  military  knights 
— in  ashes.  It  was  a  mere  stone's  throw  distant  from  our 
monastery  bounds.  Before  Sir  William  Walworth,  Mayor 
that  year,  had  ended  the  peril  of  London  by  slaying  the 
peasant  leader,  Wat  Tyler,  in  front  of  St.  Bartholomew's, 
not  400  yards  from  Charterhouse  Gatehouse,  our  monastery 
must  have  stood  in  the  gravest  risk.  But  since  no  special 
connection  is  made  in  the  MS.  between  the  events  of 
those  terrible  days  and  the  attack  on  the  monastery, 
which  must  now  be  quoted,  we  can  only  suppose  that  it 
did  not  occur  during  Wat  Tyler's  rebellion,  and  that  at 
that  particular  crisis,  perhaps  for  lack  of  opportunity,  our 
Charterhouse  escaped. 

"  In  the  year  of  our  Lord,  1405,  were  hallowed  the 
altars  of  the  Holy  Cross  and  St.  Anne  in  the  chapel  of  St. 
Anne  at  the  west  end  of  the  church,  and  this  was  done  of 
a  purpose  that  women  could  there  hear  masses  and  so  by 
degrees  be  shut  out  of  the  church.  For  from  the  beginning 
of  the  first  foundation  women  were  always  wont  to  enter 
the  church,  and  the  brethren  for  fear  of  the  common  folk 
did  not  dare  to  forbid  them.  But  the  untamed  people 
of  the  commonalty  of  London  conspired  in  many  injuries 
and  terrors  on  them  and  other  religious.  ..." 

[Here  follows  an  account  of  the  mob  which  destroyed 
a  block  of  houses  near  St.  Paul's,  which  had  invaded,  they 
said,  their  common  rights.] 

"  On  another  occasion,  too,  they  came  with  horrid 
tumult  and  blaring  trumpets  to  the  House  of  the  nuns  of 
Clerkenwell,  and  having  applied  fire  which  they  had 
brought  with  them,  they  set  alight  the  gates  of  it,  together 
with  the  bars,  posts,  and  hedges,  and  destroyed  the 


THE    MONASTERY  59 

enclosures,  alleging  that  they  were  some  time  used  to  play 
there  and  exercise.  .  .  .  And  later,  while  they  were  going, 
as  it  had  been  agreed  between  them,  to  that  House  of  the 
Salutation  of  the  Mother  of  God  to  destroy  not  only  the 
enclosures,  but  all  the  cells,  as  they  declared,  affirming 
that  before  the  laying  out  of  the  cells  themselves,  and 
within  many  years  in  the  place  where  the  cells  have  been 
built,  and  all  around  as  if  in  a  public  place  belonging  to 
the  said  commonalty,  they  had  races  and  practised  divers 
games  ;  which  was  true,  but  only  by  permission  and  not 
of  right  or  any  other  title  of  law.  But  by  the  will  of  God 
it  happened  that  two  or  three  of  them  fearing  God  with- 
stood the  multitude  with  great  difficulty  and  with  supplica- 
tion turned  them  from  their  wicked  purpose,  but  only  for 
that  day.  For  there  were  in  those  days  many  followers 
of  the  damnable  sect  of  the  Lollards.  And  on  other 
occasions  they  came  in  greater  numbers  .  .  .  and  on 
their  third  and  fourth  coming  they  surrounded  the  whole 
House  and  its  bounds  in  a  ring,  spying  out  as  the  sons  of 
Israel  the  city  of  Jericho,  and  went  inside  and  placed 
new  bounds  and  limits  according  to  their  will  for  a  long 
distance  within  the  former  bounds  and  limits  and  caused 
the  old  walls  and  the  buildings  within  to  be  destroyed  and 
removed  and  threatened  to  destroy  the  whole  House. 
For  such  reasons  the  Prior  and  brethren  feared  to  offend 
the  said  commonalty. 

"  In  1405  Dan  Henry  and  Dan  Everard,  Priors  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin  Mary  in  Holland  and  of  Diest,  visited  the 
province  of  England,  and  made  the  following  regulation 
for  that  House,  and  wrote  in  their  charter  as  follows  : 
'  And  because  it  is  forbidden  by  the  most  illustrious  Prince 
the  Lord  King  of  England  [Henry  IV]  that  women  enter 
the  House  of  the  Mother  of  God  near  London  or  even  a 
chapel  contained  in  the  length  of  the  same  church,  because 
from  the  beginning  of  the  House  neither  Prior  nor  convent 
for  fear  of  the  common  folk  had  dared  to  forbid  them. 
Therefore  in  the  strictest  way  that  we  could  we  have 
commanded  the  Prior  and  Procurator  that  as  soon  as  they 
can  they  cause  a  wall  to  be  built  around  the  church,  as 
we  have  directed  them,  and  that  they  do  not  allow  women 
to  enter  within  it  under  the  pains  of  the  new  statutes 
[nova  statuta],  and  that  no  monk,  except  the  Prior  and 
Procurator,  ever  go  beyond  the  said  wall.  We  also  most 


60  OUR  MONASTERY   FROM   1371 

strictly  forbid  the  Prior  from  causing  a  sermon  to  be 
preached  in  the  outer  cemetery  *  of  the  House.' 

"  After  this  order  the  Monks,  except  the  Prior  and  the 
Procurator,  did  not  go  out  of  the  gate  made  in  the  said 
wall  to  this  day  for  any  cause  whatever,  not  even  for  the 
funeral  of  any  dead  person.  For  before  that  order  the 
Monks  went  as  far  as  the  outer  gate  of  the  said  cemetery 
to  meet  the  funerals  of  the  dead." 

The  record  explains  to  us  a  fact  probably  without 
parallel  in  the  history  of  the  Order — the  admission  of 
women  to  the  conventual  church — a  fact  due,  admittedly, 
to  the  stress  of  the  situation.  It  must  be  observed  that 
admission  to  the  church  cannot  be  supposed  to  apply  to 
the  part  within  the  choir  shut  off  for  the  use  of  the  choir 
monks.  It  can  only  have  applied  to  the  more  western 
portion,  probably  not  even  to  the  space  of  the  floor  reserved 
for  the  lay  brothers,  but  rather  the  space  further  west, 
yet  still  within  the  precincts  of  the  church.  Few  episodes 
more  interesting  have  ever  come  to  light  in  the  history  of 
our  House. 

Meanwhile,  and  in  the  more  troubled  times  before  the 
succession  of  Henry  IV  had  brought  some  amount  of 
comparative  restfulness,  Prior  Luscote  had  gone  to  his  rest. 
The  record  runs  thus  : — 

"Be  it  remembered  that  Guy  de  Burgh  was  shaved 
in  the  House  of  Beauvale  of  the  Carthusians,  A.D.  1354, 
and  when  called  came  to  the  House  of  the  Mother  of  God, 
Nov.  10,  1370,  the  house  of  whose  cell  began  to  be  built 
in  the  week  of  Pentecost  next  following.  Also  on  the 
15th  June,  1398,  died  the  Venerable  John  Luscote  .  .  .  not 
merely  the  first  Prior,  but  another  Founder.  His  body  was 
buried  in  the  cemetery  of  the  said  House  within  the 
cloisters,  according  to  his  desire,  at  the  feet  of  Guy  the 
Monk,  whose  life  is  known  to  have  been  most  holy,  opposite 
to  the  cloister  door  by  which  one  goes  from  the  cloister  to 
the  Guest  House  at  a  distance  of  30  feet  from  the  same 
door.  I  found  these  things  written  concerning  these  two 
fathers." 

*  i.e.  Charterhouse  Churchyard  (or  Square). 


THE    MONASTERY  61 

This  passage  fixes  for  us  the  position  of  the  little  burial 
ground  where,  in  the  manner  of  the  Carthusians,  a  Monk  or 
Prior,  or  Lay  Brother,  is  laid  in  his  habit,  without  coffin, 
face  downward,  with  no  memorial  nor  record  save  the  little 
wooden  cross  which  perishes  in  a  few  years.  So  was  it 
with  Guy  the  Monk  and  John  Luscote  our  first  Prior.  The 
spot  where  they  lie  cannot  be  accurately  fixed,  since  the 
exact  position  of  the  door  from  the  cloisters  cannot  be 
gauged.  But  the  cemetery  lay  in  the  south-west  corner 
of  the  Great  Cloister,  and  somewhere  there,  unrecorded, 
lie  the  quiet  bones  of  the  men  who  set  the  seal  of  their  own 
fine  qualities  on  the  monastery  which  they  had  helped  to 
make. 

The  stern  order  of  the  provincial  visitors  deprived  the 
London  monks  of  the  privilege  of  the  "  Spatiamentum," 
which  had  already  become  a  custom  perhaps  in  all  Charter- 
houses.* No  doubt  the  peculiar  circumstances  required 
it,  for  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  though  the  House  was 
described  as  "  near  London,"  it  was,  in  fact,  within  earshot 
of  tilts  and  tournaments,  fairs  and  races,  and  every  kind 
of  cause  which  brought  men  together  in  large  crowds. 
It  was,  indeed,  not  long  after  this,  in  the  year  1424,  that 
the  visitors  once  more  found  grave  fault  in  that  the  servants 
of  the  monastery  were  wont  to  go  forth,  and  even  with  the 
Prior  and  Procurator,  clad  in  parti-coloured  clothes.  These 
were  doubtless  the  Donati.  In  an  age  which  expressed 
its  fancy  in  stripes  and  patches,  the  servitors  of  the  great 
men  who  frequented  the  playing-grounds  of  Smithfield 
doubtless  went  as  gay  as  their  masters,  and  one  can  well 
understand  the  temptation  to  the  servants  of  the  monastery 
to  imitate  them,  though  one  can  only  wonder  that  the 
monastery  allowed  it.  It  was,  indeed,  a  charge  brought 
against  other  Monastic  Orders  of  the  day  that  they  both 
went  abroad  themselves  in  unbefitting  garb  and  allowed 
their  servants  to  do  the  same.  But  the  former  of  these 
two  charges  at  least  was  not  brought  against  the  Carthu- 
sians. The  first  we  hear  of  anything  of  the  kind  was 
when  the  pseudo-prior  of  Beau  vale,  Thomas  Cromwell's 

*  It  is  mentioned  as  early  as  the  thirteenth  century. 

F 


62 

man,  put  in  after  the  surrender,  presented  himself  to  welcome 
the  commissioners  at  his  gatehouse  clad  in  a  short  velvet 
mantle. 

But  the  correction  of  any  growing  abuse  was  always, 
under  the  visiting  system  of  the  Carthusians,  well  and 
faithfully  and  speedily  done,  and  the  pied  appearance  of 
the  Donati  soon  ceased  to  give  trouble.  Meanwhile,  the 
completion  of  the  buildings  necessary  to  the  monastery 
went  slowly  forward.  In  July  15,  1414,  we  read  of  the 
hallowing  of  the  altars  in  the  Chapterhouse  in  honour  of 
St.  Michael  and  all  the  Blessed  Spirits,  another  in  honour  of 
the  Trinity,  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  and  yet  another  on 
the  north  side  in  honour  of  St.  John  Baptist  and  St. 
Hugh,  by  the  Bishop  of  London  (Richard  Clifford).  And 
it  may  be  accepted  that  this  must  have  been  practically 
the  date  of  the  completion  of  the  Chapterhouse  itself, 
which  stood  to  the  east  of  the  church.  We  have  already 
spoken  of  the  hallowing  of  the  Greater  Bell  *  on  July  18, 
1428,  by  Dan  Richard  Fleming,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  to  the 
honour  of  the  Virgin,  and  then  follows  an  entry  of  the 
greatest  interest. 

"  In  1431  there  entered  into  the  Great  Cloister  the 
conduit  built  of  the  goods  of  William  Symmes  and  Anne 
Tatersale  ;  which  William  gave  to  the  construction  of  the 
said  aqueduct  300  marks.  Also  that  Christ's  poor  might 
the  more  freely  and  lawfully  enjoy  such  great  benefit  of 
water,  etc.,  etc.  .  .  .  220  marks." 

The  original  deed  between  John  Feriby  and  his  wife 
Margery,  daughter  of  Sir  James  Bernersbury  (Barnsbury), 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Prior  and  Convent  on  the  other, 
is  still  in  existence.  It  bears  date  1430,  and  is  witnessed 
by  the  celebrated  Humphrey,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  brother 
of  Henry  VI.  It  had  long  been  lost  note  of,  but  it 
reappeared  at  the  sale  of  the  Phillips  Manuscripts,  and  was 
bought  by  the  present  Master  of  Charterhouse,  and 
placed  in  the  school  museum  at  Godalming.  There  is 

*  This  is  the  bell,  re-cast,  which  still  tolls  the  curfew  night  after 
night. 


THE  MONASTERY  63 

little  reason  to  doubt  that  the  great  parchment  roll  now 
in  the  Muniment  Room  of  Charterhouse  in  London  was 
the  record  of  the  water  supply,  its  conduits,  pipes,  and 
pits,  half  ground  plan,  half  elevation,  which  was  originally 
attached  to  this  deed  in  1430.  For  though  there  are  many 
entries  on  that  plan  in  several  hands  of  a  later  period  (and 
one  of  these  is  actually  dated  1511),  it  is  quite  clear  that 
much  erasure  has  taken  place,  many  rewritings  *  and 
additions  have  been  made  (as,  for  instance,  eight  springs 
or  contributory  sources  in  place  of  the  original  four),  and 
the  plan  generally  treated  as  a  consulting  record  kept  up 
to  date.  It  is  on  four  skins  of  parchment,  sewn  together, 
to  a  length  of  9  feet  11  inches,  and  with  a  breadth  of  1  foot 
8 1  inches.  It  is  drawn  in  a  brownish  ink,  the  details 
heightened  by  colour,  and  it  traces  the  entire  course  of 
the  supply  from  the  highest  springs  (called  wells)  to  the 
final  discharge  at  Charterhouse.  This  parchment,  like  the 
deed,  had  at  one  time  ceased  to  be  in  the  care  of  our 
Muniment  Room.  On  May  1,  1746,  as  we  learn  from  a 
minute  of  the  Archaeological  Society,  it  belonged  to  Francis 
Godolphin,  Esq.,  who,  by  1747,  had  given  it  to  Nicholas 
Mann,  Master  of  Charterhouse,  who  in  turn  gave  it  to  his 
successor,  Samuel  Salter,  from  whom  it  passed  to  the 
Muniment  Room.  Beginning  from  the  plot  of  ground 
53  perches  long  and  12  feet  wide  in  Islington  at  the  place 
called  Obermead  in  the  Manor  of  Barnersbury,  the  pipes 
passed  by  agreement  through  the  lands  of  the  Priory  of 
St.  John  of  Jerusalem  at  Clerkenwell,  through  the  field 
called  Nonnes  or  Nonys  field,  belonging  to  the  Nuns  of 
Clerkenwell,  then  through  a  meadow  called  Whitwell 
Beach  (which,  now  built  over,  is  the  property  of  the 
governors  of  Charterhouse),  after  passing  through  the 
building  known  as  the  White  Conduit,  which  till  1831 
stood  one  mile  from  Charterhouse  still  bearing  Sutton's 
Arms.  On  approaching  what  is  now  Clerkenwell  Road  it 
passed  through  Pardon  Chapel,  whose  shape  is  clearly 

*  Most  of  these  rewritings  have  been  made  over  earlier  erased 
entries,  and  appear  to  have  been  entered  after  1512,  and  probably 
during  the  time  when  the  monastery  was  being  largely  remodelled 
under  Prior  Tynbygh. 


64  OUR  MONASTERY   FROM   1371 

outlined   on  the  parchment,   and   so  across   the   monk's 
wilderness  to  its  final  destination  in  the  "  Conduit  "  or 
fountain  in  the  middle  of  the  Great  Cloister.     This  is,  of 
course,  a  familiar  feature  in  almost  all  the  Charterhouses 
of  Europe.     In  our  case,  as  in  most  others,  the  water  was 
distributed  by  four  main  pipes  to  the  four  wings  of  the 
cloister,  and  gave  to  each  cell,  as  it  seems,  its  supply  of 
water  in  its  little  garden.     The  exits  or  "  ayes  "  of  the 
pipes  at  various  points  on  the  south  side  of  the  buildings, 
and  even  in  the  Flesh  Kitchen  or  Egypt  of  Charterhouse 
Yard  are  also  clearly  indicated.     Indeed  it  must  be  thought 
of  as  an  accurate  plumber's  plan  in  which  every  detail  of 
the  actual  water  supply  is  to  be  trusted.     But  the  plan 
must  not  be  treated  as  if  it  were  a  scale  drawing  of  the 
buildings  themselves  even  in  the  incomplete  condition  in 
which  they  stood  in  1430-31.     For  example,  the  church 
is  represented  in  elevation  with  no  small  care  as  viewed 
from  the  Great  Cloister  on  the  north.     This  of  necessity 
hides  from  view  all  the  chapels  and  buildings  attached  to 
it  on  the  south.     While,  therefore,  the  plan  of  the  pipes 
and  cocks  on  that  side  is  mapped  with  care,  the  actual 
ground  plan  of  the  chapels  and  buildings  is  omitted,  not 
being  essential  to  the  purposes  of  the  map.     Again,  the 
Little  Cloister  is  indicated  in  summary  fashion,  but  without 
any  divisions  of  the  buildings  which  existed  around  it, 
and  without  the  Chapel   of  St.   Mary  Magdalene  which 
opened  out  of  it.     The  gatehouse  is  represented  because  a 
pipe  led  through  it,  but  it  appears  as  a  detached  building, 
the  wall  which  united  it  (probably  on  the  line  of  the  modern 
wall)  not  being  mapped.     The  "  botery  cok  "  is  indicated, 
but  the  buttery  itself  is  omitted.     So,  too,  the  cock  and 
vat  in  the  brewhouse,  without  the  building.     Indeed,  none 
of  the  obediences  of  the  lay  brothers  (Washhouse  Court,  etc.) 
and  none  of  the  monastery  barns  and  outhouses,  which 
stood  where  now  the  Preachers'  and  Pensioners'  Courts  are 
seen,   find   a  place  on  the   map.     Its  use,   therefore,   as 
evidence  must  always  be  blunted  by  this  reserve.     Never- 
theless, it  is  by  far  the  most  important  document  which 
we  possess  for  the  reconstruction  of  the  monastery  in  the 


THE   MONASTERY  65 

fifteenth  century.  Unhappily  a  later  copy,  made  evidently 
for  clearness'  sake  in  consequence  of  the  many  erasures  in 
the  original  plan,  has  lost  one  of  its  four  skins,  and  that 
the  very  skin  which  would  have,  perhaps,  given  us  the 
amended  plan  of  the  monastery  after  the  alterations  in  the 
first  third  of  the  sixteenth  century.* 

The  next  entry  of  interest  in  the  MS.  says  : — 

"  In  1436  the  Little  Cloister  was  built  between  the 
church  and  the  guesthouse  of  the  goods  of  John  Clyderhow, 
and  the  altar  in  the  chapel  there  was  hallowed  in  honour 
of  St.  Mary  Magdalene." 

Next  we  read  : — 

"  In  1475,  July  29,  was  hallowed  an  altar  in  the  chapel 
of  St.  Agnes  on  the  north  side  of  the  church  where  formerly 
the  parlour  f  was,  of  which  chapel  the  founder  was  William 
Freeman,  sometime  Clerk  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem  in 
England." 

And  the  last  entry  of  the  M.S.M.I.  is  :  — 

"  1481.  On  the  feast  of  St.  Lucy,  Virgin  and  Martyr 
(Oct.  13),  was  hallowed  the  altar  and  a  chapel  built  in  the 
same  year  in  the  cemetery  without  the  wall  [Charter- 
house Churchyard  or  Square]  which  the  aforesaid 
visitors  from  over  the  sea  [i.e.  the  visitors  of  1405]  had 
caused  to  be  built.  The  first  founder  of  which  [chapel]  was 
Robert  Hislett,  whose  intention  was  that  the  altar  with 
the  chapel  should  be  hallowed  in  honour  of  the  Assumption 
of  the  Most  Blessed  Virgin  Mary.  But  Dan  Edmund 

*  The  monastic  water  supply  remained  as  the  only  water  supply 
of  Sutton's  Hospital  till  1767,  when  the  master  reported  that  the 
pipes  (mostly  of  elmwood)  which  conveyed  the  water  from  the 
white  conduit  were  stopped  up.  On  May  21,  J767,  a  contract  was 
entered  into  with  the  New  River  Company.  Some  thirty-five  years  ago 
the  foundations  of  the  conduit  in  the  Great  Cloister  were  accidentally 
opened  up.  Unfortunately  no  record  was  made  of  what  was  then 
found. 

t  The  position  of  the  later  locutorium  or  parlour  in  which  the 
Prior  held  audiences  with  his  monks  and  visitors  is  not  known. 
Probably  it  was  moved  to  the  east  wing  of  the  Little  Cloister,  where, 
it  is  thought,  the  later  Priors'  quarters  were  situated. 


66  OUR   MONASTERY  FROM   1371 

[Storer],  then  Prior  of  the  House,  wished  the  said  altar 
with  the  chapel  to  be  hallowed  in  honour  of  All  Saints. 
When  the  day  of  hallowing  came  the  Bishop  Suffragan  of 
the  Bishop  of  London,  who  was  summoned  for  this  purpose, 
understanding  the  wishes  of  the  said  Prior  and  of  Robert, 
hallowed  the  altar  with  the  aforesaid  chapel  in  honour  of 
the  most  Blessed  and  Ever  Virgin  Mary  and  all  the 
Saints." 

In  explanation  of  this  entry  the  reader  must  be  reminded 
that  when  New  Churche  Hawe  was  enclosed  as  a  Carthusian 
monastery,  and  its  soil  no  longer  available  for  burials, 
a  small  portion  of  some  3  acres  was  cut  off  and  left  outside 
for  the  use  of  the  public.  This  became  known  as  Charter- 
house Churchyard,  and  is  now  Charterhouse  Square.  The 
chapel  mentioned  above  was,  of  course,  the  chapel  of  the 
cemetery.  It  became,  in  1543,  with  the  cemetery  itself, 
which  seems  by  that  time  to  have  ceased  to  be  used,  the 
property  of  Sir  Edward  North.  Our  Muniment  Room  has 
a  document  of  May  13,  1561,  by  which  the  latter  (then  Lord 
North)  conveyed  the  fabric  of  the  building,  whose  contents 
are  elaborately  set  forth,  to  one  Thomas  Cotton,  a  school- 
master. We  learn  that  the  chapel  was  built  of  brick  and 
tile.  We  hear  of  pews  and  seats  in  plenty ;  of  lockers, 
clasps,  and  bolts  ;  of  matting  and  green  saye  ;  of  wainscot 
doors  and  fittings  ;  of  a  screen  or  partition  between  the 
choir  and  the  body  of  the  chapel.  All  of  which  have 
entirely  disappeared  from  sight. 

These  additions,  and  the  gradual  development  of  the 
convent  up  to  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  imply  a 
steady  accession  of  wealth.  The  convent  record,  and  the 
evidence  of  the  registered  wills  of  the  century,  confirm  this 
fact.  We  find  recorded  by  theM.S.M.L  not  a  few  indentures  * 
between  the  monks  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  of 
pious  persons  desirous  to  secure  for  the  souls  of  themselves 
or  their  dear  ones  the  prayers  for  ever  of  the  Carthusians. 

*  One  may  remind  the  reader  that  an  indenture  was  a  document 
endorsed  in  duplicate,  and  then  separated,  cutting  the  parchment 
in  an  indented  line,  each  party  to  the  contract  retaining  one-half 
of  the  indenture. 


THE   MONASTERY  67 

So,  too,  in  the  wills  of  the  period  a  large  number  of  bequests 
are  found  always  with  the  same  condition  expressed  or 
implied.  A  few  only  of  these  may  be  quoted,  though  the 
entire  series  throws  interesting  light  on  the  life  of  that 
age. 

John  Hastings,  Earl  of  Pembroke  (d.  1375),  who  had 
married  Anne,  daughter  of  Sir  Walter  Manny,  made  a 
will  May  5,  1372,  leaving  to  the  Charterhouse,  London, 
beyond  Newgate,  the  remainder  of  the  sum  CCCC  pounds 
"  which  I  have  in  part  granted  to  that  House  in  fulfilment 
of  a  vow  I  made  in  Guienne."  One  of  the  witnesses  is 
William  of  Wykeham.  A  later  will,  however,  omits  this 
bequest,  which  had  probably  been  made  good  to  the 
monastery  in  the  meantime. 

A  typical  will  is  that  of  Felicia  Pentry,  relict  of  John. 
It  bears  date  May  19,  1381.  She  is  to  be  buried  in  the 
church  [this  is  interesting]  of  the  Carthusian  House,  near 
West  Smythefeld,  near  the  tomb  of  her  late  husband. 
She  leaves  to  the  Prior  and  monks  of  the  said  house  certain 
rents  issuing  from  her  tenement  called  "  le  Holceler,'*  in 
the  Parish  of  St.  Margaret  Bruggestret,  so  that  they  observe 
her  obit  and  the  obit  of  her  late  husband  at  the  Feast  of 
St.  Boniface,  Bishop  and  Martyr,  Jan.  5,  with  Requiem 
and  Placebo  and  Dirige  with  music  on  the  vigil  of  the  said 
feast. 

The  will  of  Cecilia  Rose,  relict  of  Thomas  Rose,  clerk, 
June  10,  1380,  describes  the  monks  as  "  the  Religious 
called  Chartres  *  living  at  the  New  Churcheyard  without 
Aldrichegate." 

Sir  William  de  Walleworth,  Dec.  20,  1385,  whose 
benefactions  to  the  place  have  already  been  mentioned, 
left  remainder  to  the  Carthusian  House  of  the  Salutation 
of  the  B.V.  Mary,  near  London,  with  the  reversion  of 
certain  tenements  in  the  Parish  of  St.  Christopher  in 
Bradestrete  in  return  for  their  prayers. 

The    will    of   the    celebrated    John    of   Northampton 

*  In  these  wills  the  monastery  is  found  described  as  "  The 
Charterhouse,"  "  Charterhouse,"  "  Charthus,"  "  Charthous,"  "  Char- 
tres," etc.  The  variations  mark  the  period  of  transition  from  the 
original  Chartreuse  to  its  final  English  form  Charterhouse. 


68 

(Dec.  15,  1397),  draper  and  freeman,  the  friend  of  William 
Walworth,  and  the  deadly  foe  of  the  ill-fated  Nicholas 
Brembre,  is  very  interesting.  After  other  bequests  he 
leaves  Remainder  to  the  Church  of  the  Salutation  of  the 
Mother  of  God  of  the  Carthusian  order  near  London,  and 
of  the  Convent  of  the  same  for  pious  uses.  On  the  day  of 
his  obit  half  a  mark  of  silver  of  the  profits  of  the  said 
tenements  [in  All  Hallows  the  Great  at  the  Hay  in  the 
Ropery]  to  be  expended  on  the  pittance  (dinner)  for  the 
convent  and  each  monk  is  to  have  half  a  pound  of  ginger, 
and  at  every  Lent  each  monk  is  to  have  a  pound  of  dates, 
a  pound  of  figs,  and  a  pound  of  raisins  beyond  his  usual 
allowance.  In  case  of  default  in  carrying  out  his 
wishes  the  aforesaid  property  to  go  to  the  mayor  and 
corporation. 

This  kind  of  safeguard — reversion  in  case  of  default 
to  some  other  beneficiary — is  quite  common  in  wills  of  the 
day,  and  to  avoid  needless  repetition  it  may  be  added 
that  both  the  wills  and  gifts  by  indenture  make  frequent 
provision  for  pittance  of  the  above  kind,  to  the  occupant 
of  the  cell  or  cells  whose  special  duty  it  was  to  pray  for 
the  souls  of  the  testator.  The  will  of  William  Estfeld,  Mar. 
14,  1445,  which  incidentally,  by  the  bequest  of  the  "  Coler 
of  Gold  "  given  him  by  the  King  [Henry  VI],  tells  us  that 
his  son-in-law  was  Humphry  de  Bohun,  leaves  to  the 
convent  a  cask  of  red  Gascony  wine. 

The  will  of  John  Bedham,  fishmonger,  June  15,  1472, 
is  of  interest,  since  it  provides  for  the  maintenance  of 
lamps  to  be  kept  burning  over  the  tombs  of  Richard 
Clyderhow  and  of  John  Popham,  Knight,  with  observance 
of  an  obit  for  the  soul  of  William  Baron.  All  these  three 
persons  were  buried  in  Charterhouse. 

The  will  of  Richard  Chawry,  alderman  [of  Candlewick 
ward]  and  freeman,  Oct.  18,  1508,  leaves  remainder  so 
that  the  names  of  the  said  Robert  [Rede,  Knight,  Lord  Chief 
Justice  of  the  Common  Bench]  and  Margaret  [wife  of 
Robert]  be  placed  in  the  codex  of  the  convent  called  le 
Martylage  *  Boke  to  be  remembered  in  prayers. 

*  Martyrologium   or  Martilogium,   originally   a   register  of   the 


THE   MONASTERY  69 

One  of  the  latest  bequests  by  will  proved  1515,  though 
it  had  been  made  on  April  7,  1503,  is  that  of  Thomas 
Thwaites,  Mercer  of  London,  and  Burgess  of  Calais — 
wherefore  the  will  is  to  be  proclaimed  both  at  Poules  Cross 
and  in  Calais.  He  is  to  be  buried  in  the  Chapel  of  St. 
Jerome  [founded  by  Sir  John  Popham,  1453]  within  the 
Chartyrhous,  to  which  chapel  he  leaves  all  his  jewels  and 
stuff  of  his  chapel  for  use  therein  and  to  every  brother  of 
the  said  House  twelve  pence,  together  with  the  reversion 
of  certain  lands  in  Aldermanbury. 

These  few  examples  out  of  a  long  list  of  bequests,  gifts, 
and  indentures  will  serve  to  show  not  only  one  chief  source 
of  the  monastery  wealth,  but  also  the  bond  of  special 
affection  which  in  that  age  tied  the  hearts  of  so  many  of 
the  people  of  England,  but  especially  of  London,  to  that 
little  spot  outside  the  busy  city,  where  day  by  day  prayer 
went  up  for  the  souls  of  their  dear  ones.  To  their  imagina- 
tion it  was  a  Vale  of  Rest  in  which  by  day  and  night  the 
white  monks  did  sentinel  duty  for  the  spirits  of  the  departed. 
From  the  highest  in  the  land  to  the  lowliest  it  stood  for 
the  peace  of  the  soul.  A  John  of  Gaunt,  a  Robert  Knollys, 
a  Thomas  More,  might  resort  hither  for  quiet  retreat, 
and  the  poorest  woman  of  the  town  who  had  knelt  in  the 
Chapel  of  St.  Anne,  carried  comfort  with  her  as  she  stole 
back  across  the  meadows  to  her  home  in  the  crowded 
street.  And  above  all  there  was  a  belief  strong  and  well 
grounded  in  an  age  where  confidence  in  all  the  orders  was 
no  longer  general  that  the  lives  which  were  lived  within 
those  walls  were  worthy  of  their  task.  He  who  reads  this 
last  sentence  may  therefore  feel  surprise  that  I  do  not 
much  enlarge  on  the  lives  of  individual  monks,  more  or  less 
familiar  to  us,  nor  try  to  establish  their  personalities.  The 
life  of  a  cloistered  monk  makes  little  material  for  biography. 
Those  who  have  read  the  chapter  which  deals  with  the 
daily  round  of  the  Carthusian  will  realise  this.  It  is  to 

names  of  saints  and  martyrs.  Later  it  denoted  a  register  of  the 
obits  and  benefactions  of  those  who  had  been  received  into  the 
fraternity  of  the  congregation,  and  whose  names  were  thus  recalled 
to  mind.  It  was  also  called  Necrologinm  ;  also  Liber  Vitse,  album, 
or  annal.  See  Nicolas  on  "  Wills." 


70  OUR   MONASTERY   FROM    1371 

the  monk  who  violates  the  spirit  of  the  order  that  we  should 
look  for  anything  that  helps  to  make  history,  to  a  Nicholas 
Hopkins  of  Witham,  or  to  an  Andrew  Boorde  of  London, 
but  hardly  to  those  whose  life  is  silence.  It  is,  perhaps, 
not  to  be  wondered  at  if  Carthusian  writers  in  dearth  of 
stronger  material  have  sometimes  embroidered  strange 
visionary  matter  upon  the  simple  white  robe  of  the  monk, 
but  one  cannot  think  it  well.  It  may  raise  a  kindly  smile 
in  us  when  we  read  how,  about  1393,  Dan  John  Homersley,* 
of  saintly  life,  who  inhabited  cell  T,  founded  by  Sir 
William  Ufford,  was  there  visited  by  two  devils,  one  of 
whom  gave  his  name  as  Asmodeus,  and  how  failing  entirely 
in  cell  T  they  visited  a  good  old  monk,  Dan  Thomas 
Clughe,  with  like  result — but  it  cannot  add  to  our  belief, 
nor  yet  for  that  matter  detract  from  it,  that  the  men 
were  of  saintly  life.  Nor  when  we  read  how  Dan  John 
Darley,  who  grumbled  at  his  food,  and  once  said  he  would 
rather  eat  toads  than  such  fish  as  was  served,  presently 
found  himself  invaded  in  his  garden  and  cell  by  toads  who 
infested  it  for  three  months,  and  how  when  he  put  one  in 
the  fire  it  hopped  out  again,  and  how  another  whom  he 
seized  with  the  tongs,  smelt  diabolically,  as  other  monks 
bore  witness  ;  and  how  Prior  Tynbygh  was  assaulted  by 
devils  and  left  for  dead,  sore  wounded  on  the  floor  of  his 
cell.  To  what  end  such  tales  ?  We  may  surely  ask  to 
believe  that  the  wrestlings  with  self  of  the  Carthusians  was 
of  nobler  texture  and  none  the  less  real  than  this  ;  and 
that  the  robust  saintliness  of  a  St.  Bruno  or  a  St.  Hugh, 
of  a  Nicolas  Albergati  or  of  a  John  Houghton,  grew  to  its 
strength  out  of  sterner,  truer  stuff  than  this.  And  it  is 
with  the  truest  reverence,  and  not  from  any  lack  of  it, 
that  a  writer  may  well  prefer  to  leave  to  their  honourable 
silence  the  lives  of  men  who  stand  in  need  of  no  such 
doubtful  embellishments. 

*  He  was  in  his  turn  buried  at  the  feet  of  John  Luscote,  as  the 
latter  had  been  buried  at  the  feet  of  Guy  de  Burgh. 


THE    CELLS  71 

ORDER  OF  THE  CELLS  IN  THE  GREAT  CLOISTER,  WITH 
THE  NAMES  OF  THEIR  FOUNDERS  FROM  CHARTULARIES 
OF  CHARTERHOUSE,  61,  RECORD  OFFICE.  [M.S.M.I.] 

West  Wing. 

A.  Sir  Walter  de  Mannay  *   [and  partly  Sir  William 

Walworth]. 

B.  Sir  William  Walworth  f  (door  of  cell  still  exists). 

C.  Sir  Adam  Fraunceys  J  (door  still  to  be  traced). 

D.  Sir  William  Walworth  (position  apparently  traceable). 

E.  Sir  Adam  Fraunceys. 

„       o-    AJ  (  One  of  these  cells  existed  in 

r        !•'  w^     wT63^  \      s<™e   completion    up    to 
G.      Sir  William  Walworth.  1      Ig72 


North  Wing. 

H.  Sir  William  Walworth. 
J.  Sir  William  Walworth. 
K.  Lady  Margaret  of  St.  Paul,§  Countess  of  Pembrock. 

*  Sir  Walter  Mannay  (d.  1372),  "  first  founder  "  of  the  monastery. 
See  Chap.  IV. 

t  Sir  William  Walworth  (d.  1385),  native  of  Darlington,  of  good 
family.  Became  apprentice  to  John  Lovekyn,  founder  of  the 
Fishmongers'  Company.  Alderman  of  the  Bridge  Ward  ;  Sheriff  ; 
Lord  Mayor,  1374  and  1384.  Enlarged  St.  Michael's,  Crooked  Lane, 
and  founded  a  college  there.  In  1381  built  one  of  the  two  towers 
which  on  either  side  of  the  river  with  a  chain  between  protected 
the  shipping  of  London,  and  in  the  same  year  slew  Wat  Tyler  in 
West  Smithfield  in  presence  of  Richard  II,  who  knighted  him. 
He  founded  the  five  cells  in  the  Great  Cloister  partly  as  executor  of 
John  Lovekyn,  and  partly  with  his  own  money.  [The  cell  door  of 
No.  2  cell  survives.] 

J  Sir  Adam  Fraunceys,  Frauncis,  or  Francis,  Mercer  ;  Lord 
Mayor,  1352-1353.  A  man  of  mark  in  his  day.  Founded  "  the 
colledge  in  the  Chapel  of  the  Guildhall."  His  daughter,  Maud, 
married  John  Mpntacute  (d.  1400),  3rd  Earl  of  Salisbury,  the  Lollard 
champion  who,  in  1395,  fixed  the  Lollard  manifesto  on  the  doors  of 
St.  Paul's  and  Westminster  Abbey  ;  and  after  the  deposition  of 
Richard  II  made  a  plot  for  his  restoration,  but  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  mob  at  Cirencester,  after  surrender,  was  there  summarily 
executed.  At  the  death  of  Adam  Fraunceys  his  burial  was  placed 
in  the  hands  of  Simon  of  Sudbury,  the  unhappy  archbishop  who  was 
beheaded  in  the  Tower  by  the  mob  in  the  Wat  Tyler  Rebellion, 
1381.  Adam  Fraunceys  paid  1000  marks  sterling  for  the  construction 
of  his  five  cells. 

§  Lady  Mary  of  St.  Paul  [S.  Pol  near  Agincourt],  Countess  of 
Pembroke  (d.  1376),  daughter  of  Count  Guy  IV  de  Chatillon,  third 
wife  of  Aymer  de  Valence  (d.  1324),  whom  she  survived  by  fifty 
years.  She  was  the  foundress  of  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge.  She 
had  given  the  sum  of  200  pounds  and  other  money  gifts  for 


72  OUR   MONASTERY    FROM    1371 

L.  Sir  Adam  Fraunceys. 

M.  Sir  Adam  Fraunceys. 

N.  Thomas  Aubrey  *  and  Alicia  [or  Felicia],  his  wife. 

O.  Margaret,  wife  of  Frederic  Tilney  f  [Thymelby]. 


East  Wing. 

P.      Robert  Knolles  J  [Knollys]  and  dame  Constance,  his 
wife. 

the  foundation  of  the  cell  in  her  lifetime,  no  mention  being  made 
of  it  in  her  will,  which  leaves  her  body  to  be  buried  in  Denny  Abbey, 
Cambs.,  where  her  tomb  was  prepared.  She  speaks  of  her  husband, 
Aymer,  "  who  lieth  buried  in  the  Abbey  of  Westminster."  The 
tomb,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  surviving  instances  of  early 
fourteenth-century  sculpture,  is  in  the  north  ambulatory  of  the 
Abbey,  to  which  also  she  left  her  "  Cross  with  a  foot  of  gold  and 
emerald  which  Sir  William  de  Valence  brought  from  the  Holy  Land." 
By  the  indenture  with  the  Monks  of  Charterhouse  prayers  were  to 
be  made  for  the  soul  of  Aymer  and  William  de  Valence,  and  Joan, 
his  wife.  For  her  mother,  the  Lady  Mary,  and  her  father,  Guy. 

*  Thomas  Aubrey  and  Alicia  or  Felicia,  his  wife.  He  was 
probably  of  the  family  of  John  Aubrey,  Lord  Mayor  in  1374,  who 
was  buried  in  Charterhouse.  Alicia  appears  to  have  been  the 
daughter  of  Mary  de  St.  Pol. 

t  Margaret  or  Margery  Tilney,  also  written  Thymelby  and 
Tibury,  gave  260  marks  for  the  foundation  and  endowment  of 
this  cell. 

$  Sir  Robert  Knolles  or  Knollys  (d.  1407),  and  Dame  Constance, 
his  wife.  He  was  of  uncertain  origin,  and  presently  became  the 
most  capable  and  the  most  ferocious  of  all  the  train-band  leaders 
of  his  day.  As  the  commander  of  "  the  Great  Company  "  he  ravaged 
France  from  end  to  end,  and  for  the  third  of  a  century  was  the 
dread  of  every  homestead  in  France.  He  was  known  as  "  the  old 
Brigand,"  and  the  blackened  gable  ends  of  the  ruins  he  had  made 
were  known  as  "  Knolles  Mitres."  Acknowledging  neither  God  nor 
man  as  master,  he  was  yet  always  loyal  to  his  view  of  the  interests 
of  Edward  III  and  of  his  native  land.  His  principle  of  war  was  at 
least  logical.  It  was  to  inflict  by  any  means  all  the  injury  possible 
on  the  foe.  To  chivalry,  as  it  was  understood  by  such  a  man  as 
Manny,  he  was  wholly  a  stranger,  and  so,  too,  to  pity.  He  ravaged 
Brittany  from  sea  to  sea.  He  swept  Normandy  from  Carentoin 
to  Rouen,  and  thence  raided  France  from  Nevers  to  Orleans,  and 
from  Toulouse  to  Vezelay.  Having  threatened  to  capture  the  Pope 
himself  at  Avignon,  he  came  within  a  few  leagues  of  fulfilling  his 
promise.  In  1356  Parliament  had  to  petition  Edward  III  that  for 
his  services  to  England  his  crimes  as  a  freebooter  might  receive  a 
free  pardon,  such  as  had  been  granted  to  Sir  John  Hawkwood 
(presently  to  become  the  savage  but  capable  condottiere  of  Urban  VI). 
Twice  in  his  career  he  made  Du  Guesclin  a  prisoner,  but  was  after- 
wards defeated  by  him  at  Pont  Vallain.  And  so,  after  a  long  career 
of  incredible  incident,  he  at  length  was  allowed,  on  payment  of  a 
large  sum  to  Edward,  to  return  from  his  outlawry,  to  England, 
where,  on  the  day  when  Wat  Tyler  was  slain  by  Walworth,  Knolles 
rode  beside  Richard,  and,  it  is  said,  urged  mercy  towards  the  peasant 
mob,  though  Froissart  describes  the  exact  contrary.  The  last 


THE    CELLS  78 

Q.  Dan  John  Bokyngham,  Bishop  of  Lincoln.* 
K.  Dan  Thomas  Hatfield,  Bishop  of  Durham.f 
S.  Dan  Thomas  Hatfield,  Bishop  of  Durham. 

record  of  his  military  service  was  in  1379,  when  he  saved  Nantes  by 
personal  bravery,  in  which  he  was  never  wanting.  The  later  years 
of  his  life  seem  to  have  been  spent  in  the  north  of  England.  He 
founded  a  college  in  Rome  in  conjunction  with  his  old  comrade — 
one  of  his  own  sort — Sir  John  Hawkwood.  He  rebuilt  the  bridge  of 
Rochester,  which  had  been  destroyed  in  1356.  He  founded  the  hostel 
for  poor  men  at  Pontefract,  known  as  the  Knolles  Almshouses,  and 
he  rebuilt  the  churches  of  Sculthorpe  and  Harpley.  In  London  he 
was  a  benefactor  to  the  Carmelites  of  Whitefriars,  and,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  our  own  Carthusians.  When  the  light  failed  him  at  Scul- 
thorpe on  Aug.  15,  1407,  it  closed  upon  a  life  which  for  bravery 
and  savagery,  for  diabolical  cruelty,  and  for  belated  and  perhaps 
remorseful  piety,  for  picturesque  incident,  and  for  military  capacity, 
has,  perhaps,  no  equal  in  European  history.  Of  his  wife,  Constantia, 
whom  he  married  in  1360,  little  is  known.  She  is  said  to  have  been 
a  native  of  Pomfret,  of  "  mene  birth,"  but  her  armorial  bearings 
seem  to  be  an  evidence  to  the  contrary. 

*  Dan  John  Bokyngham  (d.  1398),  Bishop  of  Lincoln  from  1303  ; 
prebendary  of  Lichfield,  1349  ;  Archdeacon  of  Northampton,  1351  ; 
Keeper  of  the  Privy  Seal  to  Edward  III.  Translated,  much  against 
his  will,  to  Lichfleld,  1397,  to  make  room,  by  a  shameless  process, 
for  Henry  Beaufort,  he  retired  to  Monastery  of  Christ  Church, 
Canterbury,  where  he  died,  1398.  Took  tardy  and  reluctant  action 
against  the  Lollards,  condemning  to  the  stake,  1382,  William  de 
Swinderby,  for  whom  John  of  Gaunt  interceded.  Swinderby 
recanted,  and  was  spared.  He  presided  also  at  the  strange  suit  in 
which  Cardinal  Orsini  claimed,  in  vain,  the  Archdeaconry  of  Lincoln 
against  the  King's  nominee.  In  the  episcopate  of  Bokyngham  there 
were  probably  added  to  the  Minster  of  Lincoln  the  upper  part  of 
the  two  western  towers,  the  row  of  sculptured  kings  on  the  west 
front,  the  west  windows  of  the  aisles,  and  the  beautiful  stalls.  He 
was  a  benefactor  to  New  College,  Oxford,  and  helped  to  rebuild 
Rochester  Bridge. 

t  Dan  Thomas  Hatfield  (d.  1381),  Bishop  of  Durham,  1345-46. 
Son  of  Walter  of  Hatfield  in  Holderness.  At  all  times  close  in  the 
counsels  of  Edward  III,  whom  he  followed  in  the  wars  with  France, 
being  present  at  the  siege  of  Calais  and  the  battle  of  Crecy.  In 
1346,  being  at  his  diocese  during  the  Scotch  invasion,  he  led  one  of 
the  four  divisions  of  the  English  army  at  the  battle  of  NeviU's  Cross. 
Once  more,  in  1356,  he  was  left  with  Percy  and  Nevill  to  guard  the 
northern  border.  Soldier  Bishop  though  he  was,  he  was  strenuous 
and  effective  in  his  government  of  his  See.  A  man  of  magnificence, 
both  in  his  person  and  in  his  manner  of  life,  he  left  his  mark  on  the 
buildings  of  Durham.  To  him  was  due  the  keep  and  the  Great  Hall 
of  the  Castle,  now  much  reduced  in  length  ;  and  he  rebuilt  much 
of  the  southern  portion  of  the  nave  of  the  Cathedral,  with  the 
bishop's  throne  under  which  his  tomb  is  placed.  In  his  day  the 
struggle  for  precedence  between  the  Sees  of  York  and  Durham  was 
at  its  height.  He  was  uncle  to  Sir  John  Popham,  who  was  buried 
in  the  Great  Cloister  of  Charterhouse.  He  gave  600  marks  by 
indenture  for  his  two  cells  with  the  condition  that  the  occupants 
should  ever  pray  for  the  souls  of  himself,  his  father  (called  John  in 
the  indenture),  his  mother,  Margery,  and  all  his  brothers  and  sisters, 
and  for  the  soul  of  Edward  III. 


74  OUR    MONASTERY    FROM    1371 

T.        Sir  William  Ufford,  Earl  of  Suffolk.* 

V.       Richard  Clyderhow  f  [Clitherow],  Esquire,  Armiger. 

X.      John  Clyderhow,  Clerk.J 

South  Wing,  east  of  the  church. 

Y.      William  Symmes.§ 

Z.       Dame   Joan,    formerly    wife   of   William    Brenche  || 

[Brenchley],  Knight. 
S.      Dame  Margery  Nerford,  and  Christophina  Ypstones,^ 

her  maid. 
S.      The  name  or  names  of  the  founder  or  founders  are 

known  to  God. 

*  William  de  Ufford  (d.  1382),  Earl  of  Suffolk.  A  man  of  high 
character  and  achievement  in  a  difficult  age.  He  served  loyally 
through  the  French  wars  under  Warwick,  and  other  leaders,  and 
especially  under  John  of  Gaunt,  to  whom  at  home  he  was  cordially 
opposed.  As  warden  of  the  ports  of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  and  chief 
commissioner  of  the  army,  he  so  won  the  hearts  of  the  suffering 
peasantry  that,' at  their  rising  in  1381,  they  designed  to  place  him 
at  their  head.  He  had  much  ado  to  escape  in  disguise  to  King 
Richard,  for  whom  he  presently  suppressed  the  rising  in  the  Eastern 
Counties  with  no  gentle  hand.  The  peasantry  revenged  themselves 
by  burning  several  of  his  mansions,  yet  presently  returned,  and 
perhaps  with  good  reason,  to  their  belief  in  him  as  their  chief  and 
most  trusty  friend ;  for  their  treatmenttof  him  in  no  way  lessened  his 
concern  on  their  behalf.  When  he  died  suddenly  in  Westminster 
Hall  on  Feb.  13,  1382,  Richard  lost  one  whose  councils  possibly 
might  have  saved  the  throne.  His  first  wife  was  Joan,  daughter  of 
Alice  Brotherton,  who  was  the  daughter  of  Thomas  Brotherton. 
She  was  therefore  of  kin  with  Walter  de  Mannay.  He  left  420 
marks  by  indenture  for  his  cell,  with  prayers  for  the  soul  of  himself, 
Joan  and  Isabel,  his  wives,  and  his  father,  Robert,  first  Earl  of 
Suffolk,  the  great  soldier  who  had  fought  at  Crecy  and  Poitiers  ;  and 
of  his  mother,  Margery. 

t  Richard  Clyderhow  built  his  cell  in  his  own  lifetime,  and 
left  no  sealed  indenture.  Over  his  tomb,  in  Charterhouse,  and  that 
of  Sir  John  Popham,by  the  will  of  John  Bedham,  1472,  lamps  were 
kept  burning  day  and  night. 

%  John  Clyderhow,  Clerk.  In  1436  the  Little  Cloister  (Parvum 
Claustrum)  was  built  of  his  goods. 

§  William  Symmes,  Grocer  (d.  1436).  He  had  also  benefited 
the  monastery  by  many  other  gifts,  in  all  amounting  to  over  1040 
marks.  This  included  the  water  supply  and  the  great  central 
fountain  (220)  in  conjunction  with  Anne  Tatersall ;  the  pavement  of 
the  Great  Cloister,  the  repair  of  the  upper  part  of  the  tops  of  the 
walls  of  the  church  in  hard  stone,  with  an  annual  dole  on  his  death  day, 
and  220  marks  for  other  purposes.  His  cell  cost  300  marks  sterling. 

II  Dame  Joan,  widow  of  Sir  William  Brencheley,  also  called 
Atte  Lee,  apparently  the  son  of  William  Brencheley,  Chandler. 
The  name  was  probably  Brenche  (as  it  appears  in  the  list),  the  last 
syllable  Lee  describing  the  family  home. 

If  Dame  Margery  Nerford.  This  lady  is  mentioned  in  the  will 
of  John  Watney,  Mercer,  Jan.  4,  1425,  as  haying  built  a  chapel  in 
St.  Christopher's  Church,  to  the  repair  of  which  the  testator  leaves 
a  bequest. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE   MONASTERY   IN   THE   SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

LIST  of  Priors  of  Charterhouse  from  M.S.M.I.  and  Dom 
Lawrence  Hendrik's  The  London  Charterhouse — 

John  Luscote,*  1371-1398,  27|  years. 

John  Obredon,  1398-1413,  15|  years,  died  Feb.  14,  1417. 

John  Maplestede,  1413-1439,  26|  years  (provincial 
visitor  of  England  from  1425). 

John  Thorne,  1429,  8  years. 

John  Walweyn  or  Walwan,  1  year,  died  Oct.  6,  1449. 

f  John  Seyman  or  Seman,  1449-1469,  20  years, 
resigned  1469,  died  Dec.  29,  1472. 

Edmund  Storan  or  Storer,  about  9  years,  till  1477. 

John  Walsyngham  (M.S.M.I.)  or  Wolfringham  (Hen- 
driks),  about  10  years,  1477-1487,  died  Jan.  30,  1490. 

Richard  Roche  (possibly  Rock,  the  learned  writer), 
1487  to  June  27,  1499,  died  about  1515. 

William  Tynbygh  or  Tynbergh,  1499-1529. 

John  Batmanson,J  1529  to  Nov.  16,  1531. 

John  Houghton,§  1531  to  Tuesday,  May  4,  1535 
(provincial  visitor). 

In  the  last  year  of  the  century,  which  was  also  the  last 
year  of  the  Priorate  of  Richard  Roche,  the  name  of  a 
great  Englishman  becomes  associated  with  the  monastery. 
Thomas  More,  the  son  of  Judge  John  More,  then  a  brilliant 
young  law  student  hardly  come  of  age,  went,  says  Erasmus, 

*  John  Luscote,  previously  Prior  of  God's  House  of  Hinton. 
t  Dugdale's  Monasticon  gives  the  name  of  Richard  Boston  as 
Prior  in  1472,  but  he  is  not  accepted  by  the  Carthusian  authorities. 
J  John  Batmanson,  previously  Prior  of  Hinton. 
§  John  Houghton,  previously  Prior  of  Beauvale. 

75 


76  IN   THE   SIXTEENTH   CENTURY 

who  had   become  his  closely  attached  friend  two  years 
before,  to  live  near  the  Charterhouse  for  four  years  that 
he    might   take   part   in   the   spiritual   exercises   of    the 
Carthusians,    and   devoted   himself  to   vigils,   fasts,    and 
prayers,    and    similar    austerities.     Some    writers    have 
recorded  this  in  a  different  shape,  saying  that  More  spent 
four  years  as  an  actual  inmate  of  the  monastery.     This  is 
highly  improbable.     It  is  true  that  at  this  time  More's 
ardent  religious  nature  had  turned  his  thoughts  towards 
life  in  the  cloister.     But  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  he  would 
have    been    allowed,    without    any    vows,    without    even 
becoming  an  oblate  (for  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  was 
this),  to  live  for  four  years  in  the  guesthouse,  still  less  in 
the  cloister.     It  is  true  that  the  rule  of  to-day,  by  which 
visits  to  the  Carthusian  monasteries  are  limited  to  ten 
days,  was  not  then  made.     But  we  must  remember  that  at 
this  time  More  was  a  diligent  student  of  law  at  Lincoln's 
Inn,  having  chambers  near  there,  and  it  is  not  even  certain 
that  in  1499  he  had  completed  his  three  years'  Lectureship 
at  Furnival's  Inn.     Probably  the  expression  of  Erasmus 
"  near  the  Charterhouse  "  is  the  right  one,  and  may  be 
explained  as  referring  to  his  lodging  near  Lincoln's  Inn, 
hardly  a  quarter  of  an  hour  distant  across  the  gardens  and 
meadows,  from  whence  he  could,  while  still  pursuing  his 
profession,  yet  keep  in  touch  with  the  monks  and  be  in 
daily  attendance  at  their  offices.     His  intentions,   if  he 
ever  seriously  had  any,  of  joining  that  or  some  other  order 
underwent  a  change  at  the  end  of  four  years.     But  fate 
was  once  more  to  bring  his  line  of  life  into  close  touch 
with  that  of  the  Carthusians  when,  in  1535,  awaiting  his 
own  fate  in  the    Tower,   he  saw  from  his  window  the 
Carthusians  led  away  to  their  cruel  end.     "  Meg,"  said  he 
to  his  favourite  daughter,  Margaret  Roper,  "  seest  thou 
that  these  blessed  fathers  be  now  as  cheerful  in  going  to 
their  deaths  as  bridegrooms  to  their  marriages."     Notable, 
too,  is  it  that,  after  More's    execution,  when    ten   Car- 
thusians  stood    chained   upright  in    filth  and   misery  in 
Newgate,   awaiting  Death  the   Deliverer,   it  was  More's 
adopted  daughter,  Margaret  Clement,  who  played  the  part 


SIR   THOMAS    MORE  77 

of  a  good  angel  to  the  unhappy  men.  How  far  More  had 
kept  touch  in  between  the  times  with  his  old  entertainers 
we  do  not  know,  but  the  statement  made  by  one  writer 
that  it  was  probably  "  owing  to  the  impurity  of  the 
cloister  "  that  More  changed  his  intention,  is  certainly,  so 
far  as  Charterhouse  is  concerned,  one  of  the  most  wantonly 
gratuitous  libels  that  even  religious  controversy  has  pro- 
duced. No  such  charge  has  ever  been  brought  by  any 
writer  against  the  London  Charterhouse,  and  even  at  the 
Suppression,  when  the  ill-famed  commissioners,  Roland 
Lee,  Layton,  and  their  fellows  would  have  ransacked  the 
very  sewers  of  the  monastery  to  find  some  charge  against 
the  community,  they  brought  forth  no  single  word  against 
the  purity  of  life  in  that  cloister.  Richard  Roche  was 
succeeded  as  Prior  by  William  Tynbygh  or  Tynbergh,  an 
Irishman  born  about  1450  (?),  who  held  office  till  his 
resignation  in  1529.  His  life  in  early  days  had  been,  it 
seems,  adventurous. 

We  need  not,  after  what  has  been  written  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  follow  Maurice  Chauncey  too  closely  in  his  tale 
of  how  Tynbygh  as  a  young  man  on  a  pilgrimage  to 
Jerusalem  was  seized  by  Saracenic  pirates,  and  being 
cast  for  death  one  night,  and  praying  vehemently  to  St. 
Catharine,  found  himself  next  morning  comfortably  in 
bed  in  his  own  home  in  Ireland  without  the  intervention 
of  sea  and  land  passage  required  of  ordinary  mundane 
travellers.  We  turn  with  greater  satisfaction  to  the  fact 
that  at  his  death  in  1531  the  General  Chapter  of  the 
Grande  Chartreuse  made  entry  that  he  had  worn  the  white 
habit  for  sixty  years  "  laudabiliter,"  a  term,  says  Hendriks, 
which  means  much  when  so  recorded.  Carthusian  writers 
are  unanimous  as  to  his  high  character,  and  his  long 
absence  from  the  world  does  not  seem  to  have  reduced  his 
power  of  practical  action  as  we  shall  presently  see.  When 
he  resigned,  his  place  was  filled  by  John  Batmanson,  who 
had  been  Prior  of  Hinton.  A  man  whose  writings,  fully 
recorded,  perhaps  still  existing,  but  long  unread,  had  a 
great  fame  of  their  kind  in  their  own  day.  He  even 
ventured  to  cross  swords  with  such  a  master  of  fence  as 

e 


78  IN  THE   SIXTEENTH   CENTURY 

Erasmus  with  regard  to  the  opinions  of  the  latter  upon 
Martin  Luther.  Erasmus  seems  to  have  lost  patience, 
and  wrote  an  angry  letter  protesting  against  being  called 
upon  to  face  one  whom  he  scornfully  described  as  an 
ignorant  madman.  Of  the  merits  of  the  dispute  I  know 
nothing,  but  if  Erasmus  had,  as  is  probable,  an  easy 
conquest  over  such  a  swordsman,  he  might  perhaps  have 
been  more  wisely  content  in  merely  disarming  his  foe. 
Batmanson  had  but  a  short  Priorate,  and  dying  Nov.  16, 
1531,  gave  place  to  the  last  and  the  greatest  on  the  list, 
John  Houghton.  At  the  time  of  his  election  he  was  Prior 
of  Beauvale,  Nottinghamshire,  to  which  office  he  had  been 
called  from  his  cell  in  our  monastery  only  six  months 
before.  He  was  born  about  1487  of  an  Essex  family ; 
had  been  at  Cambridge — it  is  not  known  at  what  college — 
and  took  a  degree  in  Civil  and  in  Canon  Law.  It  is  said 
that  his  parents  had  other  views  for  him  than  the  cloister 
life — a  desirable  marriage,  and  so  forth.  But  being  in  his 
own  mind  resolved  upon  the  priesthood,  he  fled  from  his 
home,  and  was  presently  ordained.  Then  after  reconcilia- 
tion with  his  parents,  and  several  years  spent  in  his  home, 
he  once  more  went  forth,  and  became  a  postulant  in  the 
Great  Cloister  of  our  Charterhouse.  He  is  believed  to  have 
taken  his  "  solemn  vows  "  about  the  year  1516  at  the  age 
of  about  twenty-nine.  Seven  years  later  he  became 
Sacristan.  And  after  five  years  in  this  office  he  was  called 
upon  to  undertake  the  less  welcome  duties  of  Procurator 
(Proctor) — a  position,  as  already  explained,  akin  to  that  of 
steward  or  bursar.  It  is  said  that  he  little  liked  the 
change,  and  that,  as  a  rule,  it  is  not  an  office  looked  forward 
to  by  a  Carthusian.  One  can  understand  that  a  very  good 
monk  need  not  make  a  very  good  Proctor.  In  the  Proctor's 
hands  were  all  the  secular  affairs  of  the  monastery,  its 
rents,  expenses,  material  work  of  every  description.  He 
had  the  care  of  the  Lay  Brothers  and  Donati,the  distribution 
of  their  work  in  their  obediences. 

He  alone,  save  the  Prior,  went  outside  the  cloister, 
into  the  city,  his  business  requiring  it.  It  was  a  return  to 
the  world  and  to  dealings  with  it  in  perhaps  its  least 


PRIOR   JOHN   HOUGHTON  79 

attractive  form  involving,  in  almost  every  transaction, 
the  commercial  element.  It  is  to  many  a  monk  almost 
an  adieu  to  what  he  holds  dearest.  Yet  it  must  be  said 
that,  judging  by  the  mere  prosperity  which  the  Charter- 
houses all  over  Europe  have  seldom  failed  to  bring 
around  them,  there  have  been  few  conspicuous  failures 
among  the  men  who  have  been  called  to  this  duty.  The 
monk  called  from  his  beloved  solitude  to  contact  with  the 
outer  world  has  not  shown  himself  slothful  in  business. 
In  the  three  years  during  which  John  Houghton  was 
called  upon  to  tread  the  streets  of  the  Cheap  and  to  make 
his  way  through  the  fish  mart  by  London  Bridge,  to  see 
the  hay  crop  carried  in  the  monk's  wilderness,  the  apples 
culled  in  the  orchard  behind  the  west  wing  of  the  cloister, 
the  fishpond  near  the  stables  re-stocked  with  "  great 
carps,"  the  horses  stalled  in  the  monastery  barns — all 
these  things,  we  are  told,  he  did  most  capably,  not  forgetting 
the  devotion  of  Mary  in  the  service  of  Martha.  Then 
came  the  short  transference  to  the  lovely  country  Priory 
of  the  Fair  Valley — Pulchra  Vallis — Beauvale,  in  Notting- 
hamshire. And  then  the  call  back  to  the  London  home, 
and  presently  the  end,  which  was  to  give  him  not  merely 
a  great  place  in  English  history,  but  also  that  crown  which 
belongs  to  men  of  whatever  faith  who  are  ready  to  die  for 
their  belief. 

It  was  during  these  last  three  Priorates,  William 
Tynbygh,  John  Batmanson,  John  Houghton — extending 
from  1500  to  1535 — that  extensive  changes  were  made, 
and  of  the  greatest  interest  in  the  fabric  of  the  monastery, 
and  especially  in  the  parts  adjoining  the  church,  the 
Refectories,  the  Prior's  cell,  the  Little  Cloister,  the  Guest- 
house, and  the  Lay  Brothers'  quarters  and  obediences. 
Unhappily  the  documents  which  would  enlighten  us  as  to 
the  exact  changes  which  were  made,  the  dates  of  the 
successive  additions,  and  the  exact  positions  of  various 
portions  of  the  new  buildings  are  not  forthcoming,*  and  we 

*  I  am  far  from  unhopeful  that  documents  may  yet  come  to 
light  in  the  Record  Office  which  will  give  details  of  the  changes  made 
in  the  last  thirty-five  years  of  the  monastery. 


80  IN  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

are  left  to  a  process  of  inference  and  deduction  which  in 
questions  so  complicated  as  these  buildings — comparable 
to  a  palimpsest  many  times  over-written — is  necessarily 
unconvincing. 

The  reader  who  has  had  the  opportunity  of  examining 
the  parchment  plan  of  the  water  supply  (see  Chap.  VII), 
preserved  in  the  Muniment  Room,  or,  failing  that,  the 
plan  in  this  volume,  will  have  been  struck  by  the 
fact  that  though  all  else  is  generalised  save  the  actual 
conduit,  the  church  is  represented  with  no  small  care. 
And  since  the  external  appearance  of  the  church  is  of  no 
value  to  the  plumber's  plan,  a  mere  ground  plan  being  as 
useful,  one  feels  that  the  draughtsman — probably  an 
inmate  of  the  Great  Cloister  well  used  to  illumination — has 
felt  reverent  affection  for  the  edifice,  and  expended  his 
best  care  upon  it.  The  conviction  fixes  itself  upon  one 
that  though  the  drawing  is  not  to  scale,  it  may  be  safely 
accepted  as  giving  a  faithful  idea  of  the  skyline  and  upper 
portion  of  the  church  when  seen  from  the  Great  Cloister 
in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century. 

The  first  thing  to  notice  is  that  the  campanile  appears 
not  as  afterwards  at  the  west  end  of  the  church,  but  halfway 
along  the  roof  ridge — that  it  is,  moreover,  a  light  structure, 
a  turret  (probably  of  wood)  supporting  a  slender  fleche 
(probably  of  wood  covered  with  lead).  The  turret  is 
hexagonal  with  battlements,  and  merely  supported, 
apparently,  as  is  usual  in  such  a  case,  upon  the  roof  beams 
and  rafters,  and  is  obviously  not  a  tower  carried  from 
floor  to  roof.  The  fleche  is  surmounted  by  the  ball  and 
cross  with  a  flag-shaped  vane.  Here,  then,  we  come  to 
the  first  important  change  in  Tynbygh's  day.  Somewhere 
about  the  year  1512 — for  that  is  the  date  carved  in  the 
lower  chamber — the  bell  tower  was  moved  to  the  west 
end  of  the  church  and  was  carried  up  with  great  solidity 
from  the  floor  of  the  church  to  the  summit  with  its  great 
bell  and  frame.  The  tower  was  in  four  stages  on  the 
ground  floor.  There  is  a  vaulted  and  groined  chamber — 
now  used  as  the  ante-chapel  and  baptistry.  Above  this  is 
a  second  chamber,  also  vaulted  and  groined,  and  with 


PRIOR   TYNBYGH'S    CHANGES  81 

the  same  bosses  as  the  lower  chamber,  except  that  the 
letters  I.H.S.  appear  on  the  central  boss.  This  chamber 
was  formerly  approached  by  a  narrow  spiral  staircase 
(still  existing)  from  the  little  open  square,  whose  north 
side  bears  the  name  of  the  Chapel  Cloister.  I  am 
strongly  inclined  to  believe  that  this  room  (now  our  Muni- 
ment Room)  opened  on  the  east  side  into  the  church,  and 
was  used  for  the  gallery  for  strangers.  This  view  receives 
encouragement  from  the  fact  that  it  was  not  entered  from 
the  church  but  from  the  outside.  The  old  entry  has  since 
been  blocked  up  and  a  new  one  made  into  the  church 
(chapel).  The  third  chamber,  above  the  Muniment  Room, 
is  reached  by  the  same  staircase  from  outside.  It  is  a 
spacious  room  from  which,  however,  in  various  subsequent 
patchings  all  signs  of  antiquity  have  disappeared  except 
a  stone  fireplace  of  original  work  and  date  which  has  been 
manifestly  replaced  among  much  later  brickwork.  Of 
what  character  the  "  Lover,"  Louvre,  or  Fleche  above 
was,  as  placed  there  by  Tynbygh,  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing. 

Not  less  important  was  the  change  which  took  place 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Refectory,  involving  the 
pushing  out  towards  the  south  of  the  Little  Cloister  with 
its  buildings.  The  reader  will  have  realised  that  the  first 
monastery  had  been  built  not  on  one  original  comprehensive 
plan,  but  a  piece  at  a  time,  with  often  long  intervals 
between.  And,  as  always  happens  in  such  cases,  the 
buildings  seem  to  have  been,  in  the  south-west  portion, 
cramped  and  inconvenient.  The  old  Freytor  which  appears 
in  the  plan  as  a  room  with  a  gable  end  towards  the  cloister 
garth,  between  cell  A  and  cell  B,  must  have  been  small 
for  its  purpose.  A  new  and  larger  Refectory  was  built 
to  the  south  of  it,  occupying  almost  the  whole  of  the  south 
side  of  the  Little  Cloister  (Master's  Court),  which  was 
then  pushed  out  and  enlarged  till  its  south  wing  occupied 
the  position,  approximately,  at  any  rate,  in  which  we  now 
see  it.  And  at  the  same  time  the  Prior's  cell  seems  to  have 
been  moved  from  its  old  position  behind  the  Freytor  and 
cell  A  (which  now  disappeared)  to  a  position  believed  to 


82  IN   THE  SIXTEENTH   CENTURY 

be  represented  by  the  large  bare  chamber  *  with 
columns  which  gives  access  from  Master's  Court  to  Chapel 
Cloister. 

With  regard  to  the  new  Refectory,  which  afterwards 
became  the  Banquet  Hall  of  Howard  House — known  in 
hospital  days  as  Great  Hall  or  Pensioners'  Hall — it  has 
become  the  custom  in  late  years  to  regard  it  as  the  Guesten 
Hall.  I  am  unable  to  trace  this  belief  to  any  authority 
earlier  than  the  last  forty  years  or  so.  I  do  not  share  the 
belief.  It  appears  to  me  far  more  probable  that  it  was  the 
Refectory  of  the  monks,  and  when  we  remember  that  at 
the  time  of  the  suppression  there  were  over  thirty  monks 
in  residence,  and  that  Carthusian  monks  coming  to  London 
from  other  convents  were  housed  and  fed  with  the  Fathers, 
the  room  would  be  not  too  large,  not  nearly  so  large  as 
many  Carthusian  Refectories  abroad.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  never  remember  to  have  seen  so  large  a  chamber  set 
apart  for  ordinary  guests,  who,  with  the  accommodation 
obtainable  in  the  town  of  London  itself,  could  never  have 
been  so  numerous  at  any  one  time  as  to  need  this  great 
space.  I  should  rather  expect  to  find,  as  is  so  often  the 
case,  that  they  had  their  meals  in  an  upper  chamber  of 
the  Guesthouse  in  the  Little  Cloister.  I  think  it  also 
probable  that  the  old  Freytor,  now  the  Brothers'  Library, 
became,  after  the  creation  of  the  new  Freytor  or  Refectory, 
the  Refectory  of  the  Lay  Brothers.  It  is,  as  has  been 
mentioned  in  the  chapter  on  Carthusian  life,  quite  an  usual 
thing  in  large  Charterhouses  for  the  Lay  Brothers  to  have 
a  separate  Refectory,  and  in  some  cases  (e.g.  the  Grande 
Chartreuse)  even  to  live  at  some  distance  from  the  main 
house.  In  no  case  do  they  take  meals  in  the  same  room 
with  the  Fathers  unless  there  is  a  partition  to  separate 
them. 

The  enlargement  of  the  Little  Cloister  affected  the 
obediences  and  quarters  of  the  Lay  Brothers  which  appear 
to  have  been  entirely  rebuilt  at  this  period.  One  fragment 

*  I  am  myself  inclined  to  believe  that  the  later  Priors'  quarters 
are  represented  by  the  first-floor  rooms  of  the  Preachers'  House 
(1913),  which  has  a  spiral  staircase  from  the  lower  floor  of  the  date 
required. 


WASHHOUSE   COURT  83 

of  these  buildings,  surrounding  the  picturesque  little  court 
known  as  Washhouse  Court,  remains  to  us,  and  in  spite 
of  much  cruel  though  well-meant  usage  at  the  hands  of 
successive  officials,  retains  a  good  deal  of  its  ancient 
character.  The  little  court  contained,  on  the  ground  floor, 
the  washhouse  [removed  hither  at  this  period  from  the 
position  in  the  Great  Cloister  east  of  the  Chapterhouse], 
a  long  workshop  (still  so  used),  the  monastery  bakehouse, 
and  the  kitchen  and  larders.  It  is  found  in  Barker's 
Confession,*  under  the  name  of  the  Lavendry  [Laundry] 
Court.  In  a  plan  about  1614  after  Sutton's  purchase  it  is 
called  the  Kitchen  Court.  In  the  eighteenth  century  it 
bore  for  a  time  the  name  of  the  Poplar  Court  from  a  fine 
tree  which  grew  in  the  middle,  and  for  a  long  time  past  it 
has  returned  to  its  older  name  as  Washhouse  Court.  It 
represents  but  a  very  small  portion  of  the  obediences  and 
offices  which  at  the  end  of  the  monastery  days  extended 
in  a  long  line  of  buildings  continued  from  the  west  wing 
of  the  court  far  down  into  what  is  now  Preachers'  Court. 
Between  that  line  of  buildings  and  the  back  wall  of  the 
west  wing  of  the  Great  Cloister  lay  the  orchard  which  in 
the  mansion  days  became  the  Privie  Garden,  and  now 
carries  the  buildings  of  the  east  wing  of  Preachers'  Court. 
Of  the  buildings  which  remain  to  us  in  Washhouse 
Court  the  portions  on  the  south,  west,  and  north,  and  the 
lower  portion  at  least  of  the  east  side,  are  of  the  late 
monastery  date,  1500-1535.  But  it  is  extremely  difficult 
to  assign  any  given  portion  of  the  work  specifically  to  any 
one  of  the  three  last  Priors.  The  east  wing  is  wholly  of 
stone,  with  some  layers  of  red  tile  inserted.  And  so,  too, 
the  south  side,  which  again  has  some  very  picturesque 
additions  in  red  brick  of  a  later  date.  The  west  wing 
appears  to  have  been  begun  at  its  south  end  in  stone, 
which,  however,  ends  abruptly  12  feet  from  the  south 
wall,  and  thenceforth  is  red  brickwork  (old  English  bond), 
the  bricks  being  of  hard  quality  and  shallow.  Mr.  Basil 
Champness,  in  his  valuable  paper  in  the  Architectural 
Review  (1891-92),  says  that  it  will  be  safe  to  attribute 
*  See  William  Cecil,  State  Papers,  London,  1759. 


84  IN  THE   SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

all  the  stonework  to  Tynbygh,  and  all  the  brickwork  to 
Houghton.     I  confess  to  a  doubt  as  to  whether  we  can 
make  a  cleavage  so  distinct  and  especially  that  particular 
cleavage ;    and  I  very  much  incline  to  the  belief  that  all 
the  changes  in  the  monastery  were  practically  complete 
by  the  end  of  Tynbygh's  priorate  (1529).     It  must  be 
remembered  that  so  early  as  1512  Tynbygh  had  gone  far 
into  his  work.     He  had  already  completed  the  alterations 
to  the  church.     Assuming  that  that  would  have  been  the 
first  work  which  he  would  have  desired  to  see  completed, 
there  were  still  left  seventeen  years  of  his  priorate,  a  period 
long  enough  to  account  for  all  the  buildings  of  the  recon- 
structed   monastery.     The   shifting   of   the    buildings   of 
the   Little   Cloister,    moreover,    which   must   have   taken 
place   at   the   same   time   as   the   building   of   the    New 
Refectory  (Great  Hall),  would,  it  is  natural  to  suppose, 
have  been  the  next  work  to  be  undertaken  after  the  com- 
pletion of  the  church.     And  it  involved,  from  the  change 
in  the  ground  plan,  the  destruction  of  the  old  Lay  Brothers' 
quarters.     It  does   not  seem  likely  that  the  monastery 
would  have  been  left  so  long  as  nineteen  years  (Houghton 
became  Prior  in  1531)  without  its  all-important  obediences. 
The   fact   that  Maurice  Chauncy,  who  took  the  habit  in 
the  first  year  of  Houghton's  priorate,  in  his  description  of 
his  beloved  leader's  government,   makes  no  mention  of 
any  changes  made  by  Houghton  must,  of  course,  not  be 
pressed  too  far,   since   Chauncy's  thoughts  were  wholly 
absorbed  in  the  spiritual  and  moral  aspect  of  the  man  and 
his  actions.     On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  piece  of  evidence 
which  is  often  called  in  in  favour  of  Houghton's  share  in 
Washhouse  Court  buildings  which  can  hardly  be  accepted. 
On  the  west  front  of  the  brick  buildings  one  reads  the 
letters  I.H.  worked  in  darker  brick.     The  letters  are  some 
3  feet  long,  and  have  been  interpreted  as  John  Houghton. 
I  do  not  know  if  I  shall  carry  my  readers  with  me  when 
in   a   merely   antiquarian    question   I    appeal    simply   to 
character  in  dissent  from  such  a  view.     I  cannot,  indeed, 
believe  that  any  Carthusian  Prior  in  carryng  out  any 
work  for  the  good  of  his  monastery  would  have  glorified 


WASHHOUSE   COURT  85 

himself  by  a  somewhat  flaunting  display  of  his  own  initials. 
Least  of  all  do  I  think  it  possible  in  the  case  of  John 
Houghton,  of  whom  Maurice  Chauncy  writes  that  "  He 
dreaded  nothing  so  much  as  to  be  known."  I  interpret 
the  inscription  as  I.H.S.,  of  which  the  S  has  been  allowed 
to  disappear — the  kind  of  negligence,  alas  !  which  has  been 
too  frequent  in  our  history — under  some  repair  of  the 
brickwork.  It  will  be  noticed  that  a  cross,  in  black  brick, 
which  has  lost  its  upper  portion  is  visible  just  under  the 
spot  where  the  S  would  have  been.  And  this  is  a  few  feet 
to  the  left,  though  a  good  deal  above  it,  of  the  bricked-up 
hatch  at  which  we  believe  the  monastery  dole  to  have 
been  handed  out  to  the  poor.  I  surmise  that  it  is  likely 
that  a  shrine  or  "  station "  of  some  kind  may  have 
existed  here,  below  the  sacred  letters  I.H.S.,  at  which  the 
receivers  of  the  dole  could  kneel  in  thanks  before  they 
departed.  And  if  this  view  be  correct  then  one  must  not 
appeal  to  the  letters  I.H.  in  proof  that  that  portion  of  the 
brickwork  was  due  to  the  last  Prior  of  Charterhouse. 

Be  this  how  it  may,  the  brickwork  of  the  Washhouse 
Court  can  be  definitely  placed  within  the  limits  of  1500 
and  1534,  and  it  is  conceivable  that  the  discovery  of 
further  documents  may  enable  us  to  give  it  a  much  narrower 
limit.  To  this  same  period  belongs  the  brick  arch  which 
spans  the  narrow  carriage  road  leading  from  the  entrance 
court  to  the  Preachers'  Court.*  This  gave  access  to  the 
monastery  barns  and  outhouses  which  lay  approximately 
along  the  line  occupied  to-day  by  the  west  wings  of 
Preachers'  Court  and  Pensioners'  Court.  It  is  natural  to 
suppose  that  here  also  some  alterations  may  have  taken 
place  at  this  period,  but  we  have  no  information.  It  is, 
however,  a  suggestive  fact  that  a  hundred  years  later,  at 
the  time  of  the  sale  to  Thomas  Sutton  (1611),  these  buildings 
were  in  such  fine  and  serviceable  condition  that  when 
upper  floors  had  been  inserted  and  staircases,  chimneys, 

*  In  1910  the  present  master  caused  holes  to  be  made  in  the 
ground  where  the  carriage  road  broadens  out  into  Preachers'  Court, 
on  the  left  some  40  feet  from  the  west  face  of  Washhouse  Court. 
At  a  depth  of  2  feet  6  inches  a  brick  pavement  was  reached,  evidently 
the  flooring  of  one  of  the  outhouses  or  barns. 


86  IN  THE   SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

and  doorways  added,  they  became  the  dwellings  of  the 
Brothers  of  the  Hospital  and  remained  so  till  they  were 
replaced  (1824-41)  by  the  present  buildings.  In  short, 
whatever  difficulties  we  encounter  in  assigning  specific 
dates  to  given  portions  of  our  buildings,  we  can  come  to 
but  one  conclusion  on  the  main  point,  namely,  that  at  the 
moment  of  its  dissolution  the  monastery  had  been  brought 
to  a  condition  so  complete,  with  its  halls,  its  guesthouses, 
its  ready-made  offices  for  a  retinue  of  servitors,  its  garden 
and  orchard,  its  kitchen  garden  and  pleasances,  its  water 
supply,  and  boundary  wall,  that  it  needed  but  the  insertion 
of  a  luxurious  dwelling-house  upon  the  ground  plan  and 
walls  of  the  buildings  of  the  Little  Cloister,  to  make  it 
what  it  was  presently  to  become,  a  princely  Tudor  Mansion. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    SUPPRESSION 

THE  last  chapter  showed  us  the  monastery  about  the  year 
1529,  at  the  height  of  its  material  prosperity,  and  with  its 
fabric  made  ready  for  the  new  lease  of  life  which  seemed  to 
await  it.  There  could  have  been  no  man  then  alive,  not 
even  Thomas  Cromwell,  who  could  have  foreseen  the  shape 
which  Destiny  had  prepared  for  it  before  that  century 
should  have  passed. 

And  its  reputation  at  the  end  of  its  days  was  even 
greater  than  its  prosperity.  We  have  several  times  noted 
the  fact  that  in  the  history  of  the  Carthusian  Order  in 
England  no  stain  of  ill  morals  or  disordered  life  mars  the 
record.  And  in  view  of  the  methods  used  and  the  character 
of  the  men  employed  to  gather  evidence,  the  absence  of 
such  charges  against  the  Order  becomes  not  merely  negative 
evidence,  but  positive.  It  is,  therefore,  deeply  to  be 
lamented  that  one  writer,  the  fascination  of  whose  style 
alone  will  give  his  history  permanent  place,  should  have 
so  far  forgotten  his  duty  as  a  historian  as  to  bring,  by 
implication,  a  sweeping  charge  against  the  Order  which 
very  ordinary  precaution  should  have  made  impossible. 
Mr.  Froude,  summing  up  the  case  against  the  monastic 
orders  at  large,  claims  a  strong  argument  in  "  the  iniquities 
of  the  monastery  of  Sion."  He  says,  "  The  order  was 
Carthusian — one  of  the  strictest  in  England.  There  were 
two  houses  attached  to  the  establishment — one  of  monks 
the  other  of  nuns."  *  And  he  proceeds  to  detail  and  to 

*  I  quote  the  index  reference  from  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.'s 
edition,  1900.  The  reference  is  to  vol.  ii.  p.  316  of  that  edition. 

87 


88  THE  SUPPRESSION 

condemnation,  none  too  strong  indeed  if  the  details 
gathered  by  Dr.  Layton  and  his  comrades,  and  quoted  by 
Froude,  carry  confidence.  It  is,  indeed,  no  part  of  my  task 
to  ask  the  reader  to  appraise  the  value  of  the  evidence  in 
any  given  instance  where  these  men  were  the  agents.  But 
it  is  no  question  here  of  evidence.  Mr.  Froude,  before  he 
wrote  almost  the  most  drastic  indictment  in  his  book, 
should  have  known — it  is  very  easy  to  do  so — that  Sion 
was  not  a  Carthusian  house,  but  of  the  Brigittine  Order, 
an  Augustinian  branch.  This  grave  default  is  the  more 
deplorable — as  also  the  charge  seems  more  damaging — 
since  the  historian  is,  save  for  some  picturesque  inaccuracies, 
fair  and  sympathetic  towards  the  monks  of  our  London 
Charterhouse  in  the  hour,  presently  to  come,  of  their  fiery 
trial. 

But  in  the  year  1529,  when  perhaps  the  buildings  of  the 
enlarged  monastery  were  completed,  no  whisper  of  coming 
trouble  had  passed  into  the  quiet  precincts  of  our  Great 
Cloister.  Court  gossip  and  other  politics  have  no  great 
currency  in  the  quiet  cells  whose  motto  is  "  Silentium." 
Henry  might  be  for  marrying  whom  he  would.  They 
might,  if  they  knew  it,  like  it  or  mislike  it.  They  might 
wonder,  and  shrug  the  shoulder,  and  remember  that  that 
was  how  things  got  done  in  the  outer  world  when  they  were 
in  it.  But  how  could  it  concern  or  come  near  them  in  the 
place  where  all  outer  things  were  forgotten  ?  So,  indeed, 
they  were  presently  to  plead.  But  as  yet  the  web  had  not 
begun  to  be  woven  that  was  to  ensnare  them. 

But  in  that  same  year  came  the  ruin  of  Wolsey,  and 
England  heard  that  the  fallen  minister  was  to  be  prosecuted 
under  the  Act  of  Praemunire,*  whose  clauses  stringently 
forbade  the  referring  of  any  cause  whatever  to  any  foreign 
potentate — the  Pope  being,  of  course,  included.  It 
extended  to  any  person  who  should  accept  any  office  or 
dignity  in  the  Anglican  Church  by  presentation  from  the 
Pope.  And  Wolsey,  in  accepting  the  position  of  Papal 
Legate,  had  violated  the  statute.  It  is  hard  to  say  if  he 

*  The  Act  had  been  passed  and  re-passed  in  the  reign  of  Edward  I, 
Edward  III,  Richard  II,  Henry  IV. 


THE    SUPPRESSION  89 

had  done  it  knowingly,  or  if  he  regarded  the  statute  as 
dormant  or  obsolete.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in 
any  case  he  relied  on  the  King's  permission  which  had  been 
given.  The  statute  made  provision  that  if  the  King  himself 
lent  himself  to  a  violation  of  it  by  a  subject  he  was  also 
guilty  of  praemunire.  And  the  irony  of  the  case  was  that 
Henry  was  now  guilty  himself  under  the  statute,  and  was 
prosecuting  the  subject  whom  he  had  unwittingly  lured  to 
his  crime.  But  Wolsey's  personality  was  not  sufficiently 
dear  to  his  countrymen  to  earn  from  them,  in  the  hour  of 
his  fall,  the  sympathy  and  claim  to  justice  which  a  sense  of 
humour,  if  nothing  else,  might  have  produced,  in  circum- 
stances so  incongruous  !  When  once  the  great  cardinal 
stood  condemned  it  became  possible  to  the  policy  of  Henry 
and  Thomas  Cromwell  to  paralyse  the  opposition  of  the 
clergy  by  an  unexpected  blow.  A  year  later  (Dec.  1530)  it 
was  announced  that  the  whole  of  the  clergy  of  England  had 
come  within  the  statute  by  accepting  Wolsey  as  Legate — a 
thing  which  to  the  majority  had  been  no  doubt  distasteful. 
The  King  proposed  to  pardon  them,  merely  inflicting  on 
the  two  ecclesiastical  provinces  a  fine  of  118,000  pounds — 
probably  about  a  year's  income  per  head.  But  to  this 
pardon  there  was  tacked  the  condition  that  they  should 
acknowledge  the  King  as  the  only  Supreme  Head  of  the 
Church.  We  need  not  follow  the  unhappy  men  through 
the  long  debates  in  convocation  up  to  the  memorable  day 
in  Feb.,  1531,  when  the  broken-hearted  Warham  read 
out  the  clause  with  the  words  added,  "  Quantum  per  legem 
Christi  licet,"  and  the  measure  passed  which  was  to  bear 
such  fruit  in  England. 

The  secular  clergy  had  been,  indeed,  pardoned  and 
paralysed,  but  as  yet  no  step  was  taken  against  the  Re- 
ligious Orders.  In  Jan.,  1533,  came  the  marriage  with 
Anne  Boleyn.  In  the  summer  of  that  year,  if  Humphrey 
Middlemore,  the  Procurator,  going  about  the  business  of  the 
convent,  happened  to  pass  the  end  of  Grassechurche  Street 
he  must  have  seen  the  making  of  the  Great  Triumphal  Arch 
which  Hans  Holbein  set  up  for  his  fellow-Germans  of  the 
steelyard,  that  Queen  Anne  Boleyn  might  presently  pass 


90  THE   SUPPRESSION 

under  on  her  way  from  the  Tower  to  her  Coronation, 
"  Sitting  in  her  hair  " — as  Cranmer  wrote — beneath  her 
canopy  of  gold  with  silver  bells,  drawn  by  white  horses 
draped  in  white  and  gold.  It  was  the  sign,  if  he  could  have 
read  it,  of  a  day  soon  coming  when  he  himself  should  pass 
that  way  from  Tower  to  Tyburn. 

For  in  the  early  months  of  1534  the  Act  of  Succession 
was  passed  which  declared  Catherine  of  Aragon  to  have 
been  no  wife,  and  the  children  of  Anne  Boleyn  to  be  the 
true  heirs  to  the  throne.  And  the  Act  provided  that  any 
person  suspected  of  hostility  to  the  Divorce  could  be  called 
on  to  assent  by  oath  to  the  said  Act.  It  was  not  till  April 
in  that  year  that  the  commissioners.,  Dr.  Roland  Lee,  Bishop 
of  Lichfield,  and  Thomas  Bedyll,  Archdeacon  of  London,* 
appeared  at  Charterhouse  to  put  the  question  to  Prior 
John  Houghton.  He  answered  simply  that  he  and  the 
Fathers  did  not  meddle  with  such  matters,  and  that  it  was 
not  their  concern  whom  the  King  should  marry  or  not,  so 
that  they  were  not  asked  for  an  opinion.  The  answer 
availed  not.  The  commissioners  insisted  on  meeting  the 
monks  assembled  in  the  Chapterhouse.  Here  once  more 
the  question  was  put,  and  an  unequivocal  answer  demanded. 
The  Prior,  therefore,  in  presence  of  his  monks  replied  that 
he  could  not  understand  how  a  marriage  celebrated  accord- 
ing to  the  rites  of  the  Church,  and  so  long  observed,  could 
be  made  void.  That  night  the  Prior  and  Procurator  were 
not  in  their  cells,  but  found  cold  harbour  within  the  Tower. 
They  lay  there  for  a  month,  during  which  time  there  were 
sent  to  them  Stokesley,  Bishop  of  London,  and  Lee,  Arch- 
bishop of  York — not  to  be  confused  with  Roland  Lee  of  evil 
memory — who  at  length  persuaded  the  Carthusians  that  the 
question  was  not  one  on  which  they  were  justified  in 
sacrificing  the  lives  of  themselves  and  of  all  within  their 
convent.  Unwillingly  the  two  men  consented,  and  that 
day  they  were  once  more  walking  through  the  familiar 
streets  back  to  their  beloved  cells.  It  is  not  made  plain 
in  Chauncy's  account  when  they  met  the  Fathers  in  Chapter, 
but  he  describes  how  the  Prior  addressed  them  telling  them 

*  The  reader  is  referred  to  the  D.N.B.  for  the  lives  of  these  men. 


THE   SUPPRESSION  91 

that  their  hour  had  not  yet  come,  and  how  he  had  dreamed 
on  the  night  of  his  liberation  that  in  a  year's  time  he  should 
be  carried  back  to  that  same  prison  there  to  end  his  course. 
And  how,  though  faith  must  not  be  given  to  dreams,  he 
foresaw  that  further  trial  lay  before  them.  It  is  evident 
from  Chauncy's  words  that  the  commissioners  had  already 
"  returned  empty-handed,  having  come  to  tender  the  oath." 
But  at  their  third  visit  on  May  24,  1534,  Houghton  setting 
the  example,  the  monks  signed  their  allegiance  to  the  Act  of 
Succession,  "  so  far  as  it  was  lawful,"  and  for  the  moment 
the  danger  was  averted. 

But   the   clouds   returned   in   the   autumn.     In   Nov. 
1534,  the  Act  of  Supremacy  was  passed,  declaring  the  King 
to  be  the  only  Supreme  Head  of  the  Church,  and  making  it 
high  treason  to  deny  the  claim,  and  in  the  spring  of  1535  it 
was  further  enacted  and  proclaimed  that  any  suspected 
person  might  be  required  to  assent  by  oath  to  the  Act. 
The  fulfilment  of  the  Prior's  forecast  was  in  full  view. 
Calling  together  the  Chapter  he  made  known  to  them  what 
case  they  were  in.     To  realise  the  true  position  of  these 
men,  innocent  of  disloyal  intent,  we  need  to  remember 
that  for  knowledge  of  events  outside  they  were  dependent 
on  this  one  source  of  information,  namely,  the  address  of 
the  Prior  to  them  in  Chapter — and  never  would  the  address 
touch  upon  external  matters  save  in  a  case  such  as  this 
unique  in   their  history — where  a  religious  question  was 
involved.      The    London    monks,    moreover,    were    more 
strictly  secluded  from  the  outer  world,  it  would  seem,  than 
any  other  Carthusians.     The  prohibition  set  by  the  visitors 
in  1405,*  whereby  the  monks  lost  the  privilege  of  the 
weekly  walk  "  spatiamentum,"  and  were  not  allowed  "  on 
any  pretext "  to  go  beyond  the  cloister,  was,  it  would  appear, 
never  relaxed.     For  Chauncy  says  expressly  that  up  to  the 
time  of  the  great  trouble — that  is  the  period  of  dissolution — 
the  Fathers  had  not  gone  beyond  the  enclosure.     And  he 
says  in  another  passage,  describing  the  convent  life,  that 
when  Seculars  came  to  stay  in  the  convent,  "  The  Brothers, 
i.e.  lay  brothers,  were  accustomed  on  the  first  arrival  of  any 

*  See  Chap.  V,  p.  01, 


92  THE  SUPPRESSION 

visitor  and  on  receiving  the  salutation  of  Seculars  to  request 
them  not  to  acquaint  the  Brothers  with  any  rumours  or 
with  what  was  going  on  in  the  world."  The  little  band  of 
men  who  met  that  day  in  the  Chapterhouse  to  hear  the 
Prior's  announcement,  were,  in  the  main,  as  ignorant  of 
outside  polemics  as  they  were  innocent  of  all  wish  to  share 
them.  To  challenge  such  men  on  suspicion  of  an  opinion 
which  they  held,  or  were  thought  to  hold,  was  to  create 
a  treason  where  none  had  before  existed. 

At  this  point  we  find  our  chief  authority  for  much  which 
happened  inside  the  monastery  in  the  well-known  record 
of  Dom  Maurice  Chauncy,  a  professed  monk  of  Charterhouse. 
He  was  a  Hertfordshire  man,  born  about  1513,  and  after 
Oxford  and  Gray's  Inn  he  became  a  postulant,  and  took  the 
final  vows  in  the  last  year  of  John  Houghton's  Priorate, 
1534.  He  was,  as  will  presently  be  seen,  one  of  the  firmest 
of  the  monks  after  Houghton's  death  in  resisting  all  the 
efforts  which  were  made  to  get  the  remaining  monks  to 
sign  the  oath  of  the  Supremacy.  He  was,  indeed,  so 
marked  a  dissentient  that  he  was  one  of  the  four  selected 
for  removal,  and  was  sent  to  Beauvale,  whence  he  presently 
returned  in  no  more  concessive  mood.  But,  eventually,  a 
good  deal  through  the  influence  of  the  Brigittine  Monks  of 
Sion,  he  gave  way  and  signed.  This  act  tinged  the  whole 
of  the  rest  of  his  life  with  deep  remorse — a  remorse  which 
makes  itself  felt  through  all  the  pages  of  his  narrative.  At 
the  expulsion  of  the  monks  in  1538  Maurice  Chauncy  was 
one  of  those  who  passed  out  of  the  gates  with  a  pension — it 
is  doubtful  if  he  ever  touched  it — and  he,  with  one  lay 
brother,  reached  Bruges,  where  he  was  received  into  the 
Chartreuse  of  Val  de  Grace,  and  he  remained  there  sixteen 
years  till  the  Coronation  of  Queen  Mary,  when  he  returned 
to  England,  and  was  presently  made  Prior  of  the  reopened 
Charterhouse  of  Sheen.  At  Mary's  death  he  had  once  more 
to  retire  to  Val  de  Grace,*  of  Bruges,  where  two  years  later 
he  became  Prior  ;  but  presently,  as  the  House  became  more 

*  This  monastery  has  disappeared.  A  street  behind  the  Halles 
retains  the  name  of  "  La  Rue  des  Chartreux,"  and  the  Museum  des 
Hospices  occupies  the  site. 


MAURICE  CHAUNCY  93 

crowded,  he  was  allowed  to  create  a  separate  House  in 
Bruges,  which  obtained  the  name  of  Sheen  Anglorum. 
But  here  again  the  rest  was  to  be  broken.  In  1578  the 
monks  of  Sheen  Anglorum  were  expelled  from  Bruges  with 
those  of  other  orders,  and  took  refuge  at  Louvain.  Maurice 
Chauncy,  still  Prior  of  the  almost  homeless  little  band,  as  a 
last  resource  travelled  to  Spain  to  seek  the  aid  of  Philip  II, 
with  what  success  is  not  known,  for  whatever  message  of 
hope  or  disappointment  he  carried  with  him  never  reached 
his  brethren.  He  died  on  the  way  home  at  the  Chartreuse 
of  Paris  [July  12,  1581]  at  the  age  of  sixty-eight. 

The  record  is  said,  in  the  Introduction  to  the  latest 
edition,*  to  have  been  written  about  1539.  But  this  can 
hardly  be  the  case,  since  in  one  of  the  latest  chapters  the 
writer  speaks  of  the  convent  having  passed  to  the  possession 
of  Lord  North  a  year  and  a  half  before.  Since  Lord  North 
(then  Sir  Edward)  obtained  his  letters  from  Henry,  on 
April  14,  1545,  and,  taking  Maurice  Chauncy's  words  to  the 
letter,  his  record  cannot  have  been  written  earlier  than  the 
last  months  of  1546. 

Allowing  for  the  presence  of  much  which  is  miraculous 
and  visionary  in  character,  and  which  will  be  accepted  or 
rejected,  or  explained,  according  to  the  temperament  of 
the  reader,  there  remains  a  perfectly  simple  and  obviously 
truthful  narrative  of  historical  events  as  he  saw  them  and 
took  part  in  them.  Wherever  the  account  can  be  compared 
with  outside  contemporary  records  of  the  day,  or  with  the 
evidence  of  legal  documents,  Chauncy's  narrative  shows 
discrepancies  so  slight  as  to  be  of  no  importance.  Froude, 
indeed,  challenges  one  important  statement  with  reference 
to  Cromwell's  action  at  the  trial  of  John  Houghton,  but 
hardly  comes  off  victorious.  It  is,  however,  for  the  actual 
course  of  events  within  the  cloister  that  we  are  able  to 
accept  Chauncy's  pages  as  a  perfectly  trustworthy  guide. 
No  document  more  touching,  more  truly  pathetic,  exists 
in  the  English  language  than  this  simple  record  of  the  way 
in  which  eighteen  Englishmen  faced  a  fate  which  they  could 

*  An  English  translation  was  published  by  Burnes  and  Gates, 
1890. 


94  THE  SUPPRESSION 

have  averted — as  many  did  avert  it — by  a  stroke  of  the 
pen.  Opinions  on  the  general  question  of  the  Reformation 
in  England,  and  of  an  infinite  number  of  points  and 
incidents  which  arose  within  it  and  out  of  it  are  almost  as 
diverse  to-day  as  they  were  in  that  century.  On  one  point 
there  can  be  no  two  opinions  amongst  honest  men  of 
whatever  colour  of  religious  thought — namely,  that  these 
brave  English  gentlemen,  who  preferred  to  die  rather  than 
to  give  their  conscience  the  lie,  are  rightly  called  by  men  of 
all  faiths  or  of  none  by  the  name  of  Martyrs. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  gathering  of  the  Fathers  to 
hear  the  message  which  their  Prior  had  for  them.  Chauncy 
preserves  for  us,  if  not  the  exact  words,  the  substance  of  the 
Prior's  address.  After  explaining  to  them  what  was  impend- 
ing, to  their  great  consternation  he  told  them  that  his  chief 
grief  was  for  the  younger  brethren,  who  being  sent  out  into 
the  world  again  might  learn  its  evil  lesson  and  go  back  to 
the  flesh.  Then  he  spoke  of  his  own  debt  to  God  if  he 
should  thence  lose  any  of  the  souls  entrusted  to  him.  With 
one  voice  they  cried  that  they  would  rather  die  in  their 
simplicity.  The  Prior  resumed — 

"  Would  it  might  be  so  that  one  death  may  make  us 
alive  whom  one  life  hath  brought  to  death,  but  I  do  not 
believe  they  intend  so  great  a  good  for  us  or  to  do  them- 
selves so  much  harm.  Many  of  you  are  from  a  noble  race. 
This  rather,  I  think,  they  will  do.  They  will  deliver  you 
elder  ones  and  me  to  death  and  let  the  younger  ones  go 
where  they  will,  into  a  land  not  their  own.  Wherefore,  if 
my  consent  be  alone  required,  I  will  throw  myself  on  the 
mercy  of  God,  and  be  anathema  for  these  my  least  brethren 
and  consent  to  the  King's  will,  '  si  licite  fieri  possit,'  in  order 
to  preserve  them  from  so  many  and  such  great  future 
dangers.  If,  however,  they  shall  decree  that  all  shall 
consent,  and  if  the  death  of  one  (that  the  whole  people 
perish  not)  shall  not  suffice,  then,  may  the  will  of  God  be 
done,  and  I  would  wish  it  might  be  by  the  equal  sacrifice 
of  us  all." 

Then  John  Houghton  bid  them  choose  each  a  confessor 
whom  he  would,  and  the  next  morning  he  proposed  to  them 


THE   MONKS  AND   CROMWELL  95 

a  day  of  solemn  reconciliation,  which  having  come  "  he 
preached  a  sermon  on  charity,  patience,  and  firm  adhesion  to 
God  in  adversity,  treating  those  five  verses  of  the  Psalm(lx.), 
'  O  God,  Thou  hast  cast  us  out  and  destroyed  us.' '  Then, 
asking  the  Fathers  and  Brothers  to  do  what  they  saw  him 
do,  he  knelt  before  each  in  turn,  passing  from  the  choir  of 
the  Fathers  to  that  of  the  Lay  Brothers,  and  from  each  of 
them  down  to  the  last  Lay  Brother  he  asked  forgiveness  if 
at  any  time  he  had  done  aught  against  him  in  thought  or 
word  or  deed.  Each  Father  and  each  Brother  did  the  same. 
And  so  at  peace  with  one  another  and  with  God  these  brave 
men  waited  quietly  for  the  end. 

It  was  not  far  away.  And  it  was  brought  nearer  by  the 
simple-minded  act  of  the  Carthusians  themselves.  For  it 
happened  that  at  this  time  there  came  to  London  Prior 
Robert  Lawrence,  of  Beauvale,  once  a  monk  of  our  cloister, 
who  had  come  on  a  visit  of  affection,  and  Prior  Augustine 
Webster,  of  Axholme,  once  a  monk  of  Shene,  on  the  business 
of  his  House.  Both,  naturally,  were  lodged  in  our 
monastery,  and  their  visit  was  destined  to  prove  fateful. 
For  the  three  Priors  in  all  simplicity  of  heart  only,  conscious 
of  their  loyalty  to  their  King,  and  doubtless  convinced  of 
the  reasonableness  of  their  own  position,  conceived  that 
if  they  should  have  audience  of  Thomas  Cromwell  and  lay 
their  case  before  him  they  might  obtain  some  easement 
that  should  spare  them  violation  of  their  conscience  without 
loss  of  loyalty  to  Henry.  They  little  knew  their  man. 
It  was  the  very  step  that  placed  them  in  his  power.  As 
yet  the  oath  had  not  been  technically  demanded  of 
them — though  the  demand  was,  of  course,  to  come. 
The  three  Priors,  one  Tuesday  in  April,  1535 — it  appears 
to  have  been  April  13 — Chauncy  tells  us,  laid  their 
case  before  Cromwell,  who  not  only  denied  their  petition, 
but  ordered  them  to  be  sent  to  the  Tower  as  rebels.  In 


*  It  is  not  the  Carthusian  custom  to  deliver  sermons  in  the 
church,  but  in  the  Chapterhouse,  but  the  expression  that  the  Prior 
went  through  his  own  choir  and  then  to  the  other  choir,  i.e.  the  lay 
brothers'  portion,  suggests  that  this  touching  scene  took  place  in  the 
church  which  (see  Chap.  VI)  was  divided  by  the  usual  screen  into 
two  portions. 


96  THE  SUPPRESSION 

the  Tower,  Cromwell,  with  his  commissioners,  visited 
Houghton  and  questioned  them  with  no  fresh  result.  A 
fourth  recusant,  Father  Richard  Reynolds,  a  Brigittine 
Monk  of  Sion,  said  by  Cardinal  Pole  to  have  been  the  most 
learned  monk  in  England,  had  meanwhile  been  sent  to  the 
Tower.  It  was  upon  the  answers  given  by  the  four  men 
to  the  interrogatories  in  the  Tower  that  their  indictment 
was  finally  laid. 

The  three  Carthusian  Priors  and  Father  Reynolds  were 
taken  to  Westminster  on  April  29  and  charged  that  they, 
"  treacherously  machinating  and  desiring  to  deprive  the 
King  of  his  title  as  Supreme  Head  of  the  Church,  did  on 
April  26  (27  Henry  VIII)  at  the  Tower  of  London  openly 
declare  and  say  "the  King  our  Sovereign  Lord  is  not 
supreme  head  on  earth  of  the  Church  of  England." 

Having  been  once  more  asked  if  they  would  submit,  and 
declining  to  do  aught  which  was  contrary  to  the  law  of 
God,  they  were  committed  for  trial  and  the  jury  was 
returned.  Next  day,  April  29,  the  trial  continued,  and  the 
verdict  was  returned.  It  seems  that  the  three  Carthusians 
said  little  or  nothing.  Reynolds,  who  had  also  intended 
to  keep  silence,  in  answer  to  a  direct  question  from  Sir 
Thomas  Audley,  spoke  clearly  and  boldly.  But  speech  or 
silence  were  to  be  of  equal  avail.  The  jury,  according  to 
Chauncy,  on  the  first  day  were  unwilling  to  convict,  since 
they  could  find  no  malice.  He  states  that  Cromwell, 
having  learnt  of  their  disposition,  sent  a  messenger  twice 
over  with  threats  which  had  the  required  effect.  Froude 
sets  this  statement  aside  on  the  double  ground  that  the 
jury  was  empanelled  on  the  29th,  and  the  verdict  given 
that  same  day — here  the  record  is  against  him — and  also 
that  the  conduct  attributed  to  Cromwell  is  foreign  to  his 
character.  The  latter  plea  is  hardly  convincing,  or  perhaps 
convincing  on  reflection,  in  the  very  opposite  direction. 
But,  however  arrived  at,  the  verdict  was  Guilty  and  the 
sentence  Death.  Five  days  later  the  people  of  London 
saw  a  sight  till  then  unseen.  The  three  Carthusians  in 
their  white  habits,  with  Reynolds  the  Brigittine,  were 
"  drawn  "  on  hurdles  through  the  city  and  out  to  Tyburn, 


TYBURN  97 

and  there,  with  circumstances  of  ghastly  cruelty — ghastly 
even  in  those  brutal  days — were  hanged  and  quartered 
(while  still  alive,  it  is  said),  the  first  who  ever  suffered  in 
England  in  the  robe  of  a  religious  order.  The  London 
populace,  used  to  seeing  any  day,  or  every  day,  some  few 
of  their  kind  gasp  out  their  lives  on  those  gallows  for  this 
crime  or  for  that,  or  for  none  at  all,  were  not,  it  may  be 
supposed,  easily  moved  to  sympathy.  But  this  time  there 
ran  strange  rumours  among  the  mob,  and  strange  murmurs 
for  a  time,  which  showed  that  for  once  they  were  deeply 
stirred.  It  was  said  that  Henry  himself  had  been  one  of 
the  masked  horsemen  of  high  degree  who  had  watched  the 
scene,  and  in  the  long  and  deadly  drought  which  fell  upon 
the  crops  that  summer  it  became  a  common  saying  that  it 
had  not  rained  ever  since  the  Carthusians  died. 

The  day  after  the  execution  of  John  Houghton  his 
parboiled  limbs,  after  the  hideous  fashion  of  the  day,  were 
sent  hither  and  thither  to  the  usual  spots  within  the  city, 
while  "  to  the  gate  of  our  House  "  was  affixed  one  arm  of 
the  dead  Prior.  Chauncy  tells  how,  on  the  third  day,  as 
"  two  of  ours  " — lay  brothers,  for  such  they  must  have 
been — met  beneath  the  gate  the  poor  limb  fell  from  its 
place,  and  having  been  reverently  placed  within  a  chest, 
together  with  the  shirt  in  which  the  Prior  had  died,  was 
buried  in  a  secret  subterranean  place  "  until  God  should 
bring  back  the  congregation  and  have  pity  on  us."  The 
fate  of  the  chest — whether  it  was  removed,  or  whether  it 
has  since  been  found  and  not  recognised,  or  whether  it  still 
remains  somewhere  beneath  our  soil,  is  unknown.  A 
portion  of  the  shirt  together  with  the  account,  written  in 
Houghton's  own  hand,  after  his  sentence,  of  all  the  questions 
that  had  been  put  to  him,  and  of  his  answers  to  them,  passed 
through  Chauncy's  keeping  and  were  sent  by  the  hand  of 
a  Spanish  gentleman,  Peter  Barin,  to  the  Pope,  Paul  III. 

Cromwell  had  chosen  his  policy.  He  had  burnt  his 
ships.  Henceforth  there  was  no  return.  It  is  probable, 
indeed,  that  the  act  of  the  Carthusians,  Godsend  as  it  was 
to  him,  had  yet  been  so  unexpected  that  it  led  to  a  speedier 
development  of  his  plans  than  he  had  been  able  to  foresee. 


98  THE   SUPPRESSION 

Before  the  middle  of  July  John  Fisher,  Bishop  of  Rochester, 
and  Sir  Thomas  More  had  died  on  Tower  Hill  by  a  less 
cruel  death  than  John  Houghton,  but  on  the  same  charge. 
But,  before  that,  three  more  monks  of  the  convent  had 
suffered  the  same  fate  as  their  Prior.  These  were 
Humphrey  Middlemore,  formerly  Procurator  under 
Houghton,  and  recently  Vicar,  William  Exmew,  Procurator 
in  succession  to  Middlemore — these  two  being,  of  course, 
the  most  important  officers  left  in  the  convent — while  to 
them  was  added  a  choir  monk,  Sebastian  Newdigate,*  the 
reason  of  whose  selection  is  not  at  first  apparent.  He  was  a 
man  of  good  family,  once  well  known  in  Town  society  and 
at  Court,  a  playmate  and  friend  of  Henry's  youth.  Perhaps 
it  was  for  that  very  reason  that  he  was  chosen,  that  it 
might  be  seen  that  no  bond  of  friendship  or  of  favour  was 
now  to  avail.  It  was  believed  at  the  time — it  is,  indeed, 
recorded  as  a  fact  by  Father  George  Transom  (d.  1658) — 
that  when  the  three  men  were  in  the  Marshalsea,  where  they 
were  chained  upright  to  columns,  Sebastian  Newdigate 
was  visited  by  Henry  in  disguise  in  the  vain  hope  of 
persuading  him  to  change  his  resolution.  But  neither  King 
nor  Commissioner  effected  anything.  The  three  men  at 
their  trial  at  Westminster  bore  themselves  fearlessly  and 
met  their  death  as  fearlessly,  when  it  came  to  them  at 
Tyburn,  on  June  19,  a  few  days  only  before  the  execution 
of  John  Fisher. 

*  Other  accounts  make  this  visit  to  have  taken  place  while 
Sebastian  was  still  in  his  cell  at  Charterhouse. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  LAST  YEARS  OF  THE  MONASTERY 

JOHN  HOUGHTON  died  on  May  4,  1535.  It  took  two 
whole  years  and  some  odd  days  from  that  time  before 
Thomas  Cromwell  obtained  even  a  partial  submission  to 
the  Act  of  Supremacy  from  the  remaining  monks.  The 
history  of  those  two  years  in  Charterhouse  makes  sorry 
reading.  As  one  follows  the  system  of  petty  tyrannies, 
of  mean  traps,  of  unworthy  pressure  by  which  the  monks 
were  day  by  day  distressed,  one  has  to  ask  why  Cromwell 
suddenly,  after  the  double  scene  at  Tyburn,  abandoned 
the  policy  of  violence  to  which  he  had  seemed  committed, 
and  for  a  time  adopted  these  less  drastic  methods.  The 
answer  is  easy.  He  had  everything  to  gain  for  his  policy 
if  he  could  obtain  his  end  by  a  submission  which  might  be 
made  to  seem  voluntary  without  risking  the  temper  of 
the  populace  by  further  executions,  and  lighting  in  London 
the  hidden  fire  which  he  knew  to  be  burning  in  Yorkshire 
and  the  North,  presently  to  burst  into  a  flame  which 
threatened  to  consume  those  men  who  had  heated  the 
furnace.  And  so  for  two  whole  years  every  method  was 
tried  upon  the  convent.  Three  men,  Bedyll,  John  Whalley, 
Jasper  Fyloll,  were  now  to  be  used  as  the  chief  agents  for 
the  reduction  of  the  stronghold.  Of  these  Whalley 
became  the  first  resident  commissioner,  being  quartered 
doubtless  in  the  guesthouse.  They  were,  perhaps,  some 
degrees  less  base  of  character  than  such  men  as  Bishop 
Roland  Lee,  London,  and  Layton,  who  were  doing  Crom- 
well's work  in  other  parts  of  England.  Also  they  were 
less  effective.  Thomas  Bedyll — Archdeacon  of  Cornwall, 

99 


100    THE   LAST  YEARS   OF   THE   MONASTERY 

which  he  probably  never  saw — one  of  the  Royal  Chaplains 
and  the  possessor  of  benefices  which  occupy  a  long  para- 
graph in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  had  done 
yeoman's  service  in  the  matter  of  the  divorce,  and  had 
received  his  reward.  He  was  sent  to  Charterhouse  on  the 
very  day  of  Houghton's  death,  and  it  was  on  his  report 
of  their  obstinacy  that  Middlemore,  Exmew,  and  Newdigate 
perished.  Jaspar  Fyloll,  one  of  Cromwell's  servants,  was 
set  rather  to  make  report  on  and  find  material  out  of  the 
domestic  affairs  of  the  monastery.  In  a  letter  written  to 
Cromwell,  on  the  5th  of  that  September,  after  giving  some 
details  of  finance,  and  adding  interesting  statements  as  to 
the  doles  of  bread  and  ale  and  fish  given  to  strangers  at  the 
buttery  door,  he  adds :  "  These  Charterhouse  monks 
would  be  called  solitary,  but  to  the  cloister  door  there  be 
above  twenty-four  keys  in  the  hands  of  twenty-four 
persons,  and  it  is  likely  that  many  letters,  unprofitable 
tales  and  tidings,  and  sometimes  perverse  counsel  come 
and  go  by  reason  thereof.  Also  to  the  buttery  door  there 
be  twelve  sundry  keys  in  twelve  men's  hands  wherein 
seems  to  be  small  husbandry."  The  passage  is  worth 
quoting,  since  it  is  the  nearest  approach  which  Cromwell 
ever  obtained  from  his  commissioners  to  a  charge  of 
doubtful  living  in  the  convent  of  Charterhouse.  It  need 
only  be  said — as  Dom  Hendriks  points  out — that  the 
twenty-four  keys  were  the  keys  of  each  monk's  cell — there 
were  twenty-four  in  the  Great  Cloister — and  not  of  the 
door  giving  access  to  the  monastery,  while  the  twelve  keys 
of  the  buttery  were  the  keys  in  the  hands  of  the  twelve 
lay  brothers  whose  duty  it  was  to  carry  the  daily  pittance 
from  the  buttery  to  the  hatches  of  the  cells  in  the  Great 
Cloister.  Certainly  Jaspar  Fyloll  had  not  that  rich  scent 
for  carrion  which  London  and  his  comrades  possessed. 
To  the  letter  Fyloll  added  a  list  of  the  monks  under  the 
letters  of  the  cells  which  they  inhabited,  giving  his  estimate 
of  the  men — with  reference,  of  course,  to  the  likelihood 
of  their  submitting — with  the  letters  g  and  b  for  "  good  " 
and  "  bad."  The  list  is  unhappily  lost,  but  the  letter 
survives  in  the  British  Museum. 


THE  LAST  YEARS  101 

We  need  not  follow  too  closely,  in  all  the  pitiful  details, 
the  course  of  treatment  which  now  followed.  Cromwell 
presently  reinforced  Whalley  and  Fyloll,  and  supplied  six 
resident  governors — "  temporal  persons,"  of  whom  three 
were  to  be  always  within  the  convent  day  and  night. 
These  governors  carried  out  the  orders  of  Cromwell,  the 
suggestions  of  Fyloll,  and  more  of  their  own.  The  monks, 
who  had  already  been  plied  with  quite  a  company  of 
preachers,  whose  names  we  know,  had  now  to  receive  a 
resident  preacher,  "  the  said  preachers  to  have  their 
chambers  there,"  who  four  times  a  week  endeavoured  to 
turn  them.  Once,  indeed,  four  of  the  monks  were  taken 
out  of  the  choir  during  service  and  carried  to  St.  Paul's 
Cross  for  a  like  purpose.  The  commissioners  were  present 
at  meetings  of  the  chapter.  The  books  of  the  monks — 
the  statutes  of  Bruno  are  specially  mentioned — were  taken 
from  them.  It  is  now  that  the  fine  library  of  the  monastery 
disappears  from  knowledge.  They  were  supplied  each  in 
his  cell  with  a  copy  of  a  book  called  "  The  Way  of  Peace," 
which  each  monk,  save  one,  forthwith  returned  unread. 
John  Rochester  retained  his  copy  for  five  days,  at  the  end 
of  which  time  he  "  burnt  him."  At  the  ears  and  the  eyes 
of  the  monks  the  commissioners  found  no  entrance.  Nor 
did  they  fare  better  with  their  mouths.  The  refectory 
arrangements  were  altered — four  messing  at  each  of  the 
six  tables.  The  lay  brother  cooks  were  removed  from 
office,  and  cooks  from  outside  were  sent  in,  who  doubtless 
cooked  flesh  meat  for  the  *'  Governors  "  in  the  guesthouse. 
Endeavour  was  made  to  get  the  monks  and  the  lay  brothers 
to  eat  meat.  It  failed  in  both  instances,  though  flesh  was 
served  both  in  guesthouse  and  freytor.*  Short  commons, 
with  brief  intervals  of  plenty,  also  failed.  Everything 
failed.  Then  early  in  1536  Cromwell  appointed  a  Prior  of 
his  own  choice — there  had  been  none  since  May  4  of  the 
previous  year — William  Trafford,  late  a  monk  of  Beauvale, 
who  in  the  Nottinghamshire  Charterhouse  had  shown  the 
boldest  face  in  resisting  the  Act  of  Supremacy.  It  has 
never  been  known  by  what  means  he  was  won  over,  but 
*  Spelt  "  fraytowr  "  in  Fyloll's  recommendations. 


102     THE   LAST   YEARS    OF   THE   MONASTERY 

now  in  London  he  set  about  his  task  of  convincing  his 
brethren  with  no  small  confidence.  He  also  was,  for 
a  while,  doomed  to  failure.  The  policy  of  Cromwell  in 
endeavouring  to  disintegrate  the  community  by  getting 
them  to  adopt  changes  in  their  rule  which  would  have 
violated  their  conscience  and  destroyed  their  self-respect 
and  the  respect  of  others,  was  once  more  to  be  disappointed. 
On  May  4,  1536,  the  experiment  was  tried  of  sending  four 
of  the  most  stiff-necked  away  to  the  North.  John  Rochester 
and  James  Walworth  were  sent  to  the  Charterhouse  of 
Hull.  In  May,  1537,  these  two  men  were  condemned  to 
death  at  York  by  the  third  Duke  of  Norfolk  and  were 
there  hung  in  chains.  The  charge  against  them  was  not, 
as  is  often  said,  a  direct  sharing  in  the  "  Pilgrimage  of 
Grace."  The  "  true  bill  "  against  them  makes  it  clear 
that  they  died  for  having  "  hidden  traitors  and  rebels  in 
the  monastery  of  Our  Lady  by  Hull,"  and  that  they  had 
"  traitorously  and  maliciously  affirmed  that  the  aforesaid 
Lord  the  King  was  not  now  Supreme  Head  on  earth  of  the 
Church  of  England." 

John  Fox  and  Maurice  Chauncy  were  sent  to  the 
Charterhouse  of  Beauvale,  and  returned  presently  to 
London. 

After  the  departure  of  these  four  monks  to  the  North 
a  full  year  was  yet  to  pass  without  effect.  Meanwhile 
eight  more  monks  were  sent  for  a  season  to  Sion  to  come 
within  the  influence  of  the  dying  Father  Pewterer,  who 
once  had  counselled  Houghton  to  go  forward  to  his  end, 
and  now  was  counselling  the  Carthusians  to  yield.  They 
returned  to  Charterhouse  and  once  more  refused  the  oath. 
Yet  the  advice  of  a  dying  man,  whose  name  had  been 
held  in  such  honour  by  them,  no  doubt  had  weakened  their 
will.  Be  that  how  it  may,  on  May  18  of  that  year,  1537, 
two  years  and  a  fortnight  after  Houghton  had  died,  twenty 
of  the  Carthusians  at  length  signed  the  oath.  Of  these, 
William  Trafford  was  one.  There  were  nine  choir  monks 
— all  of  whom  had  been  under  Houghton — and  four  lay 
brothers.  The  remainder  were  apparently  monks  from 
other  Charterhouses  dwelling  in  the  convent.  Ten  men, 


THE  END   OP  THE   MONASTERY  103 

of  whom  four  were  monks  and  six  were  conversi  (lay 
brothers),  still  refused  to  sign.  The  twenty  were  allowed 
to  remain  in  Charterhouse ;  the  ten  were,  on  May  29, 
thrown  into  Newgate. 

The  fate  of  these  men  was  more  piteous  than  that  of 
those  who  had  died  at  Tyburn  or  at  York.  They  were 
to  perish  unseen,  all  save  one.  For  it  was  still  of  Cromwell's 
policy  not  to  make  open  spectacle  in  London  of  the  con- 
stancy of  the  Carthusians.  They  were  chained  upright  to 
columns  in  one  of  the  dungeons  of  Newgate — the  prisons 
of  those  days  need  no  pourtraying — to  die  slowly  in  filth 
and  starvation.  They  never  thought  of  yielding  any  more 
than  Cromwell  and  Bedyll  thought  of  pitying.  One  bright 
light  shines  out  of  that  darkness.  It  is  recorded  that 
Margaret  Clements,  the  adopted  daughter  of  Sir  Thomas 
More,  with  the  connivance  of  the  gaolers — not  difficult  to 
buy  in  those  days — visited  the  prison  disguised  as  a  milk- 
maid and  there,  with  womanly  kindness,  brought  sustenance 
to  their  lips,  and  did  for  the  dying  men  such  helpful  acts 
as  woman  can.  They  lived,  perhaps  through  her  means, 
some  six  weeks  longer  than  one  would  have  expected,  but 
perished  in  the  heat  of  June.  Let  Thomas  Bedyll  be  his 
own  recorder.  Here  is  the  extract  from  his  letter  to 
Cromwell,  June  14,  1537  : — 

"  My  very  good  Lord.  After  my  most  hearty  commen- 
dations it  shall  please  your  Lordship  to  understand  that 
the  monks  of  the  Charterhouse  here  in  London  which  were 
committed  to  Newgate  for  their  traitorous  behaviour 
long  time  continued  against  the  King's  grace,  be  almost 
despatched  by  the  hand  of  God,  as  it  may  appear  to  you 
by  the  bill  inclosed.  Whereof  considering  their  behaviour 
and  the  whole  matter  I  am  not  sorry,  but  would  that  all 
such  as  love  not  the  King's  highness  and  his  worldly  honour 
were  in  like  case." 

So  wrote  Thomas  Bedyll,  the  King's  Chaplain,  Cromwell's 
secretary,  while  the  ten  men  lay  dead  or  dying,  despatched, 
or  to  be  despatched,  "  by  the  hand  of  God."  One  prefers 
to  make  no  comment.  To  the  list  which  he  attaches  to 


104     THE   LAST   YEARS   OF  THE   MONASTERY 

his  letter  I  have  added  the  dates  at  which  the  various 
men  perished  one  by  one. 

"  There  be  departed 

Brother  William  Greenwood  (d.  June  6). 

Dom  John  Davy  (d.  June  8). 

Brother  Robert  Salt  (d.  June  9). 

Brother  Walter  Person  (d.  June  10). 

Dom  Thomas  Green  (d.  June  10). 
"  There  be  even  at  the  point  of  death 

Brother  Thomas  Scriven  (d.  June  15). 

Brother  Thomas  Reding  (d.  June  16). 
"  There  be  sick 

Dom  Thomas  Johnson  (d.  Sept.  20). 

Brother   William   Horn    (recovered ;     executed    at 

Tyburn,  1540). 
"  One  is  whole.     Dom  Beer  (d.  Aug.  9)." 

It  will  be  seen  that  Beer  died  while  Horn  recovered, 
and  was  presently  transferred  to  the  Tower,  whence,  three 
years  later,  on  August  4,  1540,  he  was  carried  to  Tyburn 
and  executed  there. 

William  Trafford,  and  the  Carthusians  who  had  sub- 
mitted, remained  in  Charterhouse,  where  they  were 
presently  joined  by  John  Fox  and  Maurice  Chauncy,  both 
of  whom,  having  been  brought  from  Beauvale  to  Sion, 
had  there  at  length  given  way,  to  the  lifelong  sorrow  and 
remorse  of  Chauncy. 

If  the  monks  had  dreamed  that  they  would  still  be 
able  to  maintain  their  existence  as  a  Carthusian  monastery, 
the  dream  was  not  of  long  duration.  When  the  struggle 
between  King  and  Conscience  had  first  arisen  the  scheme 
of  the  suppression  of  monasteries  had  not  yet  been  made 
public,  nor,  so  far  as  the  larger  monasteries  were  concerned, 
had  it  taken  visible  shape  or  been  announced  when  Houghton 
died.  The  question  which  was  to  break  to  pieces  the 
community  of  Charterhouse,  till,  in  1537,  death  or  submis- 
sion had  carried  the  point,  was  always  that  of  the  supreme 
headship  of  Henry  in  the  Church.  But  by  the  time  that 
Charterhouse  had  submitted,  in  May,  1537,  the  dissolution 


THE   DISSOLUTION  105 

of  the  greater  monasteries  and  the  confiscation  of  their 
goods  had  already  taken  its  place  in  the  programme  which, 
little  by  little  since  1533,  had  unrolled  itself  before  the 
people  of  England.  The  dying  monks  in  Newgate  were 
still  hanging  to  their  columns  when,  on  June  10  of  that 
year,  William  Trafford,  under  the  seal  of  the  Monastery, 
signed  the  surrender  of  the  House,  with  all  its  properties, 
into  the  hands  of  the  King.  The  Monastery  was  allowed 
to  continue,  a  mockery  of  its  former  self,  till  November  15, 
when  our  great  oak  doors  *  of  the  gatehouse  were  closed 
for  ever  behind  the  monks  as  they  passed  out  into  the  world. 

*  These  doors  still  exist  in  situ. 


CHAPTER  XI 

"  QUOMODO   SEDET  SOLA  CIVITAS  " 

FOR  nearly  three  years  the  great  monastery  lay  desolate. 
Two  very  important  documents  in  the  Record  Office  give 
us  some  picture  of  its  condition  when  the  monks  had  left 
it.  The  first  of  these  is  the  inventory  attached  to  the 
deed  of  surrender.  The  second,  even  more  interesting,  is 
an  inventory  made  by  William  Daylle,  who  claimed  wages 
as  caretaker  for  one  year  and  a  half,  and  at  the  end 
of  that  time  made  his  report. 

As  we  read  through  the  surrender  inventory  we  become 
assured  that  already,  before  it  was  made,  much  petty 
plundering  had  gone  on,  and  very  much  had  been  removed. 
We  have  already  alluded  to  the  earlier  and  official  removal 
of  the  library  under  Cromwell's  orders  in  1535.  We  now 
learn  that  the  outgoing  monks,  in  Nov.,  1538,  were  allowed 
to  take  their  bedding  and  beds  "  and  stuff  within  their 
cells,"  and  their  own  books  (probably  the  supply  of 
amended  literature  sent  in  for  their  reformation).  We 
learn  that  from  the  church  447  ounces  of  silver — including 
doubtless  the  silver  basins,  the  enamelled  silver  pyx,  the 
holy  water  stoup,  and  the  silver  bell,  which  Bishop  North- 
burgh,  joint  founder  with  Manny,  had  left — were  delivered 
to  John  Williams  for  the  King,  together  with  such  vestments 
as  were  of  value  (we  read,  for  example,  of  an  angel  in  gold 
embroidered  with  pearl :  of  vestments  of  baudykin  and 
white  velvet  and  other  things).  But  much  else  had  evidently 
gone  and  is  not  accounted  for.  As  we  are  led,  by  the 
sorrowful  list,  from  deserted  chamber  to  chamber,  and 
read  of  their  forlorn  contents,  we  know  that  this  was  not 

106 


THE   DESOLATE  MONASTERY  107 

the  full  equipment  of  a  great  and  thriving  monastery. 
There  is  no  word  of  the  contents  of  the  guesthouses ; 
perhaps  they  were  the  perquisites  of  the  six  governors 
who  had  lived  there.  William  Trafford,  too,  was  perhaps 
within  his  rights  in  leaving  nothing  but  "  a  pan  and  a 
furnesse  "  in  the  new  Prior's  cell — he  had  already  been 
given  "  six  silver  spoons  and  a  fatte  of  silver  "  in  reward. 
But  what  of  all  the  kitchen  battery  ?  Perhaps  the 
"  temporal  cooks  "  might  have  given  us  the  answer.  And 
what  of  many  other  things  which  belong  of  necessity  to  a 
Charterhouse  in  being,  but  are  not  in  that  inventory  ? 

As  we  turn  from  this  bare  list  of  derelict  effects  to  the 
account  of  his  stewardship  sent  in  by  William  Daylle,  the 
mind  passes  from  pots  and  pans  to  personalities.  We  get 
a  picture  of  men  and  characters  for  which  the  monastery, 
with  its  silent  cells,  its  fruit-laden  orchards,  its  wilderness 
garden,  its  deserted  church,  become  the  background. 
Historical  names  take  accidental  place  in  the  picture — 
we  may  doubt  if  some  of  their  owners  would  care  to  have 
had  it  known  how  good  their  eye  was  for  petty  perquisites. 
As  was  fitting,  the  King  himself  got  the  lion's  share,  not 
as  the  due  of  the  Crown  in  its  high  impersonality,  but  as 
for  his  own  consumption — with  or  without  his  knowledge. 
Gerard  Haydon  set  apart  for  the  King's  share  forty-seven 
cases  of  glass,  and  all  the  wood,  timber,  and  stone  "  lying 
abroad  in  the  Charterhouse  "  (except  twelve  loads  which 
Dr.  Layton  secured).  There  are  five  entries  of  bay  trees, 
of  fruit  trees  (ninety-one  in  number),  of  rosemary  and 
other  shrubs  for  the  King's  garden  at  Chelsea,  whither 
went  also  a  load  of  hay ;  and  one  hundred  carp  went  for 
the  King  to  Fey's  mill  pond  (which  I  take  to  be  Fogswell 
pond  in  Smithfield).  Small  gratifications,  these,  which 
we  must  not  grudge  to  one  who,  Mr.  Froude  assures  us, 
felt  so  deeply  the  painful  necessities  that  were  put  upon 
him.  Master  Richard  Cromwell's  name  occurs,  he,  too, 
an  amateur  of  bay  trees,  and  a  judge,  too,  of  the  value  of 
wainscot,  which  he  had  from  two  cells  under  token — a  gold 
ring — from  the  Lord  Privy  Seal,  Thomas  CromwelJ. 
Richard  Cromwell,  whose  true  name  was  Williams,  was 


108     "QUOMODO  SEDET  SOLA  CIVITAS  " 

nephew  of  Thomas  Cromwell,  and  took  his  name.  He 
was  great-great-grandfather  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  Dr. 
Layton  had  not  taken  an  active  part  in  the  suppression 
of  Charterhouse,  being  employed  on  similar  work  elsewhere. 
But  he  lived  in  Paternoster  Row,  and  was  allowed  to 
exercise  his  fancy,  which  led  him  to  secure  three  merlin 
birds  and  their  appurtenances,  three  boards  in  the  bake- 
house, and  a  bundle  of  rose  trees,  with  the  more  solid 
selection  of  twelve  loads  of  timber.  One  Dr.  Cave  seems 
to  have  made  more  of  a  speciality  of  foodstuffs.  He  had 
the  wheat  and  the  malt.  Also  the  vinegar,  and  the  kitchen 
stuff,  and  the  buttery  stuff.  But  it  is  just  to  his  unknown 
memory  to  say  he  paid  for  it.  As  for  Cromwell  himself, 
"  My  Lord  Privy  Seal  "  was  satisfied  with  a  modest  bundle 
of  herbs.  And  so,  with  King  and  subject,  with  Lord  Privy 
Seal  and  bargain-hunting  servitors  and  dealers,  we  learn 
which  drew  prizes  in  the  great  lottery,  and  which  drew 
blanks.  But  it  is  not  till  we  come  to  the  apportioning 
to  various  tenants  of  the  available  cells  of  the  dismantled 
place,  that  we  reach  the  climax  of  interest. 

The  cells  of  the  south  wing  of  the  Great  Cloister  east 
of  the  church  adjoined  several  houses  in  the  north-east 
angle  of  Charterhouse  Church  Yard  (Square)  which,  as  we 
know  from  ancient  leases,  were  the  property  of  the  Priory. 
One  of  these  we  know  to  have  been  rented  in  1529  to  John 
Neville,  third  Lord  Latimer,  who  shortly  after  married 
Catharine  Parr — destined  hereafter  to  become  Queen  of 
England.  The  house,  we  may  remind  the  reader  in  passing, 
became,  when  Catharine  dwelt  in  it  up  to  1542,  the  centre 
of  a  highly  learned  and  brilliant  circle  of  literary  men,  a 
kind  of  symposium  where,  men  whispered,  the  new  views 
were  presently  far  from  unknown.  This  house,  which 
seems  to  have  been  approximately  on  the  site  of  Nos.  10, 
11,  in  the  present  square,  had  its  northern  boundary  hard 
up  against  the  monastery  buildings.  It  becomes,  therefore, 
of  curious  interest  when  we  read  the  item,  "  There  was  one 
little  Sir  William  defaced  and  took  down  all  the  new  wainscot 
in  a  cell  which  was  late  billeted  to  his  own  use  as  he 
intended."  This  "little  Sir  William"  was  Sir  William 


PARR,    D'ARCY,    ANGUS  109 

Parr,  brother  of  Queen  Catharine,  who  had  been  knighted 
in  March,  1539,  One  may  observe  here  that  the  monks  had 
been  allowed  to  carry  away  the  wainscot  of  their  cells. 
But  one  must  not  forget  that  the  monks  who  had  died 
at  Tyburn,  York,  and  Newgate  had  left  their  cells  intact, 
and  the  few  cells  which  offered  spoil  of  wainscot  to  the 
seekers  after  unconsidered  trifles  are  thus  accounted  for. 

We  may  feel  sure,  again,  that  the  three  cells  spoken  of 
as  adjoining  Sir  Arthur  D'Arcy's  house  were  also  in  that 
portion  of  the  cloister.  The  expression  makes  us  wonder 
which  the  house  was.  Sir  Arthur  D'Arcy,  indeed,  obtained 
the  reversion  of  Lord  Latimer's  house  in  1542,  but  Daylle's 
inventory  can  hardly  be  late  enough  for  that.  Moreover, 
Daylle  speaks  of  Gerard  Haydon's  having  had  the  keeping 
of  Sir  Arthur's  home  first  after  the  Suppression,  which 
seems  to  suggest  the  earlier  date.  Sir  Arthur  D'Arcy,  a 
friend  and  protege  of  Cromwell,  was  the  son  of  that  Lord 
D'Arcy  who  died  on  Tower  Hill  in  1536,  for  his  share  in 
the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace.  The  son,  perhaps  by  Cromwell's 
influence,  retained  the  favour  of  the  Crown,  and  held  good 
posts.  After  Lord  Latimer's  death  and  Catharine  Parr's 
departure  from  her  home  in  Charterhouse  Square,  we  find 
the  name  of  Sir  Arthur  in  several  leases  and  transfers  of 
the  house,  in  which  also  occur  the  names  of  Bell  (Bishop 
of  Worcester)  and  Sir  John  Tregonwell,  the  former  of 
whom  played  a  leading  part  in  public  life,  and  was  chosen 
by  Henry  VIII  to  hold  Anne  Boleyn's  daughter  at  the 
font,  while  Tregonwell  was  commissioner  for  the  suppression 
of  many  of  the  monasteries  of  the  west — a  man  of  better 
fame  than  some  others  of  the  same  employ.  When 
D'Arcy  gave  up  the  tenure  of  the  five  cells  we  find  from 
Daylle's  account  that  he  passed  them  on  with  the  house 
in  question  to  Lord  Angus,  and  so  we  find  Charterhouse 
giving  shelter  to  one  of  the  most  picturesque  figures  of 
English  or  of  Scottish  history.  Archibald  Douglas,  sixth 
Earl  of  Angus,  was  grandson  of  the  Great  Earl,  Archibald 
Douglas,  "  Bell-the-Cat,"  who  died  on  Flodden  Field. 
The  sixth  earl,  young,  handsome,  and  of  attractive  character, 
had  won  the  heart  of  Margaret  Tudor,  Dowager  Queen 

i 


110        "QUOMODO  SEDET  SOLA  CIVITAS  " 

of  Scotland,  sister  of   Henry  VIII.     They  were  secretly 
married,  and  a  less  happy  marriage  could  not  have  been 
devised.     It  produced  no  love  between  the  pair,  and  it 
brought  upon  them  both,  but  especially  on  Angus,  the 
deadly  hatred  of  all  the  Scottish  nobles.     The  masterful 
lady  soon  tired  of  her  young  husband.     She  had  no  small 
portion  of  her  brother's  headstrong  will,  and  something 
perhaps  of  his  taste  for  divorce.     Angus,  indeed,  beyond 
question   gave  Margaret  good  cause  for  jealousy,  but  by 
general   belief  Margaret   herself  was   very   indiscreet,    if 
nothing  worse.     Their  daughter,  Margaret  Douglas,  who 
presently  married   Lennox,   and   became  the  mother   of 
Henry  Darnley,  brought  them  small  joy.     They  gradually 
drifted  apart,  and  Queen  Margaret  determined  to  get  a 
divorce.      Henry    VIII    strongly    opposed    it,    but    the 
dowager  was  not  a  woman  to  be  baulked.     She  openly 
sided  with  her  husband's  enemies,  and  when  Angus  fought 
his  way  into  Edinburgh,  she  greeted  him  with  a  volley  of 
firearms,   which    only  killed    a    few  onlookers  who  had 
followed  from  the  High  Street.     The  rupture  was  very 
soon  complete.     Something  like  civil  war  ensued  between 
Angus  and  his  many  enemies.     In  1528  Margaret  had  her 
way.      Clement   VII,   through   the   Cardinal   of  Ancona, 
granted  her  a  divorce.     There  was  no  legal  ground  for  it, 
and  Margaret  must  have  failed  in  any  modern  court.     To 
the  end  of  her  life  Angus  refused  any  view  but  that  he 
was  still  married  to  her.     Meanwhile  her  son  James  went 
far  beyond  her  in  fierce  hatred  of  Angus  and  of  all  the 
Douglas  family.     In  1537  his  sister,  Janet  Gordon,  on  a 
charge   of  poisoning,    of   which   she   was   almost    surely 
innocent — her  real  crime  was  that  of  showing  sympathy 
with  her  brother — was  burnt  alive  at  Edinburgh  Castle. 
Small  wonder  if  Angus  was  for  ever  in  arms  against  his 
King.     An  exile  from  Scotland,  he  was  often  in  London, 
where  Henry  granted  him  a  pension  of  1000  marks  and 
gave  him  shelter — perhaps  the  lodging  in   Charterhouse 
was  from  that  source.     It  was  not  till  some  years  after 
1543,rwhen  Mary  Stuart  was  crowned  Queen,  that  he  slowly 
gave  his  allegiance  to  her  and  to  Scotland.     The  act  of 


ANGUS,    MARMADUKE   CONSTABLE         111 

Ralph  Evers,  the  English  commander,  who  had  wantonly 
outraged  the  tombs  of  the  Douglas  at  Melrose,  had  its  share 
in  the  change.  Angus  waylaid  him  a  few  days  later  at 
Ancrum  Moor,  when  the  whole  moorside  suddenly  became 
alive  with  men  who  rose  from  the  heather  and  swept  from 
the  face  of  the  earth  the  English  troops  and  their  leader. 
Never  was  Nemesis  in  a  mood  more  swift  nor  yet  more 
picturesque.  It  was  otherwise  at  Pinkie  a  few  years 
later,  in  1547.  There,  by  strange  coincidence,  it  was  the 
pikes  under  Angus,  who  alone  of  all  the  Scottish  host 
made  good  their  victory  in  that  part  of  the  field  against 
Sir  Arthur  D'Arcy's  and  Grey's  cavalry  division  of  the 
English  army,  which  that  day  was  commanded  by  Somerset 
and  John  Dudley,  himself  hereafter  for  three  short  months 
to  be,  as  Duke  of  Northumberland,  the  owner  of  Charter- 
house. And  so,  with  strange  changes  of  fortune,  this 
brave  adventurous  exile,  whose  life  was  as  full  of  romance 
as  his  character  was  of  a  certain  chivalry,  passed  presently 
out  of  history  to  his  rest  at  Abernethy.  The  short-time 
tenant  of  the  cell  in  Charterhouse  could  have  little  foreseen 
the  day  not  far  ahead,  when  his  direct  descendant,  through 
whom  he  was  to  become  the  ancestor  of  a  great  royal  line, 
should  come  back  to  this  same  spot  as  King  of  England. 

The  third  occupant,  Sir  Marmaduke  Constable,  was 
also  one  who  had  shared  the  incidents  which  made  the 
history  of  his  day.  A  brave  and  capable  soldier  himself, 
and  the  descendant  of  a  line  of  soldiers,  he  had  fought  on 
the  English  side  at  Flodden,  had  taken  part  in  the  field  of 
the  Cloth  of  Gold,  and  had  won  honour  at  Jedburgh  and  at 
Fernhurst.  At  the  time  when  the  cells  at  Charterhouse 
were  in  his  keeping  he  was  a  member  of  the  Council  of  the 
North.  Probably  he  used  the  cells  on  occasion  of  his 
return  from  time  to  time  to  London. 

But  these  uses  of  the  deserted  monastery  were  confined 
to  a  very  small  portion  of  it.  In  the  main  the  monastery 
had  no  use.  Maurice  Chauncy  tells  an  appalling  tale  of 
its  profanation.  He  says,  "  Our  House  was  given  over 
to  strangers  and  converted  to  the  vilest  uses.  In  the 


112        "QUOMODO  SEDET  SOLA  CIVITAS  " 

church  they  placed  tents  and  implements  of  war,  they 
hewed  with  axes  not  only  the  images  of  the  saints,  but 
even  of  the  Crucified,  and  stamped  upon  them.  They 
leapt  on  the  holy  altars,  danced,  and  played  with  dice, 
and  committed  in  that  sacred  place  other  detestable  and 
abominable  things  rather  to  be  wept  over  than  related." 
I  have  already  expressed  the  view  that  Maurice  Chauncy 
may  be  accepted  as  a  safe  witness  for  what  happened 
within  the  monastery  when  he  was  still  within  it.  But 
for  what  took  place  when  he  was  out  of  England  and  had 
to  depend  on  second-hand  hearsay,  we  may,  perhaps,  hope 
that  he  need  not  be  followed  to  the  extreme  of  all  his 
details.  Bad  enough  at  its  best,  one  may  trust  that  the 
profanation  did  not  reach  the  worst.  For  the  first  year 
and  a  half  at  least  after  the  suppression,  covered  as  it  is 
by  Daylle's  report,  we  incidentally  learn  that  the  church, 
kept  under  lock  and  key  by  Master  Doctor  Cave,  was 
inaccessible,  and  therefore  presumably  safe.  The  state  of 
things  hinted  at  in  the  last  sentence,  if  we  must  accept  it, 
could  only  belong  to  the  three  years  from  1542  to  1545. 
For  in  the  former  of  these  years  we  find  by  letters  patent 
of  June  12,  1542,  that  Henry  assigned  the  site  to  two  of 
his  servants,  John  Bridges,  "  valect,"  and  Thomas  Hales, 
"  gromet,"  as  a  depository  for  the  King's  tents,  hunting 
nets  (haldrum),  and  new  pavilions — for  which  the  many 
empty  chambers  no  doubt  were  found  convenient. 

If  one  asks  what  fitness  there  could  be  in  the  storing  of 
hunting  nets  in  such  a  site,  one  may  remind  the  reader 
that  in  those  days  the  neighbourhood  was  by  no  means 
without  opportunity  of  sport.  A  hundred  years  later  it 
was  still  the  custom  of  the  city  fathers  to  meet  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  what  is  now  Tottenham  Court  Road, 
and  having  dined — inevitably — to  draw  for  a  fox  in  the 
coppices  of  that  open  country.*  The  Pavilions,  one  supposes, 
would  be  handy  at  Charterhouse  for  use  at  the  jousts  of 
neighbouring  Smithfield. 

*  I  have  myself,  when  a  boy,  met,  at  Cambridge,  about  1860, 
an  old  Carthusian,  aged  then  about  seventy,  who  assured  me  that 
as  a  boy  he  had  followed  snipe  in  the  wet  meadows  between  Charter- 
house and  Islington. 


NORTH  113 

Meanwhile,  Sir  Edward  North,  Knight  and  Privy 
Councillor,  who  had  succeeded  the  unhappy  Thomas 
Cromwell,  whose  head  fell  in  1540,  as  Chancellor  of  the 
Court  of  Augmentations,  had  good  means  of  knowing  the 
value  of  such  a  site,  and  on  April  14,  1545,  letters  patent 
transferred  the  Priory  site  with  all  its  buildings  and 
grounds  from  Hale  and  Bridges  to  the  shrewd  nobleman, 
while  the  King's  nets  and  pavilions  found  fresh  refuge  in 
the  ruined  Priory  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem  hard  by. 

We  are  standing  now  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  period. 
The  monastery  days  are  over.  The  mansion  days  begin. 
From  this  time  for  sixty-six  years  [1545-1611]  the  links 
with  the  outer  world  are  those  which  bind  it  with  strange 
intimacy  to  the  stirring  history  of  Tudor  and  Jacobean  days. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    MANSION    PERIOD — EDWARD   LORD    NORTH — THE 
DUKE    OF    NORTHUMBERLAND  —  LORD    NORTH  — 

1545-1564 

THE  new  owner  of  Charterhouse  was  a  typical  product 
of  his  age.  That  age  was  prolific  in  men  of  very  noble 
character,  but  also  of  men  of  very  base  character :  of  men 
on  both  sides  of  the  great  questions  which  rent  England, 
who  were  noble  enough  to  face  any  loss,  even  to  that  of 
life  itself,  sooner  than  betray  their  belief;  and  also  of 
men  base  enough  to  make  any  profession  and  to  do  any 
deed  if  gain  were  to  be  got  by  it.  And  between  these 
extremes  lay  a  great  mass,  a  whole  series  of  gradated 
types,  of  men  who,  lodging  their  conscience  in  a  kind  of 
halfway  house,  were  ready  to  move  in  this  direction  or 
that  as  the  tide  of  popularity  passed  hither  or  thither. 
These  were  the  men  who  played  always  for  safety,  and, 
in  some  cases,  but  by  no  means  in  all,  were  able  to  obtain 
it.  To  which  of  those  diverse  types  the  first  private 
owner  of  Charterhouse  belonged  must  be  left  to  the  reader 
to  decide. 

Edward  North,  who  became  Sir  Edward  in  1541, 
and  Lord  North  in  1554,  was  the  son  of  Roger  North, 
citizen  of  London,  and  of  Christiana  Warcop,  a  lady  of 
good  family  in  Yorkshire.  His  father,  not  a  rich  man, 
afforded  to  send  him  first  to  St.  Paul's  School,  and  to 
Peterhouse,  Cambridge,  and  afterwards  entered  him  at 
the  Inns  of  Court.  By  his  undoubted  abilities  he  soon 
made  his  mark  at  the  Law,  and  we  find  him  presently 

114 


EDWARD   NORTH  115 

retained  as  City  Counsel.  He  may  have  owed  this  appoint- 
ment in  some  measure  to  the  influence  of  Alderman  William 
Wilkinson  who  had  married  his  sister,  Joan  North.*  Edward 
North's  versatility  and  culture  made  him  acceptable  in 
London  society,  where  he  was  long  a  well-known  figure. 
He  now  had  his  feet  firmly  planted  on  the  ladder  of  success. 
We  find  him  in  1530  joint  clerk  to  Parliament  with  Sir 
Brian  Tuke.f  He  became  Serjeant-at-law  and  King's 
Serjeant  somewhere  about  1536.  But,  meanwhile,  he 
had  married  Alice  Squier,  widow  of  John  Brockendon, 
who  brought  him  a  large  fortune,  for  which  act  of  prudence 
his  descendant  and  biographer  Dudley  North  records, 
as  in  duty  bound,  his  gratitude.  He  now  bought  the  estate 
of  Kirtling  Towers  near  Newmarket,  and  a  few  years 
later  we  find  him  in  Parliament  as  member  for  Cambridge- 
shire. Meanwhile,  in  1540,  the  fall  of  Thomas  Cromwell 
had  come.  The  butcherly  scene  on  Tower  Hill  in  the 
summer  of  that  year  had  ended  a  career  that  has  no  parallel 
in  our  history.  That  greatest  disciple  of  Nicolas  Machia- 
velli — the  only  disciple,  indeed,  who  has  ever  put  the 
doctrines  of  his  master  to  the  test  of  complete  practice, 
had  in  the  eleven  years  of  his  public  life  shaken  the  ancient 
systems,  religious,  political,  social,  to  their  very  base. 
One  of  the  details  of  his  administration  had  been  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Court  of  Augmentations  for  dealing  with  the 
augmented  Crown  income  resulting  from  the  dissolution 
of  the  monasteries.  Cromwell's  death  created  vacancies 
in  that  Court.  Sir  Richard  Rich  became  Chancellor 
of  the  Court,  and  North  was  appointed  treasurer.  In 
1545,  the  year  of  his  acquiring  Charterhouse,  he  became 
joint  Chancellor  with  Rich,  who,  presently  resigning, 
left  Sir  Edward  North  as  sole  Chancellor.  He  was  now 
in  the  full  tide  of  his  success.  Dudley  North  —who  in  his 

*  See  Patent  Roll,  No.  717,  Feb.,  1543.  License  to  Sir  John 
Williams  (kinsman  of  Thomas  Cromwell)  to  alienate  to  William 
Wilkinson  and  Joan  his  wife,  a  tenement  (lately  occupied  by  John 
Lelande  the  antiquary).  We  are  able  to  identify  this  by  successive 
leases  as  a  house  on  the  site  which,  after  conveyance  to  Sir  Edward 
North,  became  part  of  Rutland  House,  Charterhouse  Square. 

t  Holbein's  portraits  of  Sir  Brian  Tuke  are  now  at  Grosvenor 
House  and  Norwich. 


116  THE  MANSION  PERIOD 

biography  naively  admits  more  than  once  how  little  he 
knew  about  his  ancestor — tells  the  often  repeated  tale 
that  some  one  at  Court  had  whispered  ill  opinions  to 
Henry,  and  how  the  latter  sent  a  messenger,  no  friend,  to 
North,  to  summon  him  from  Charterhouse — it  was  done 
with  rudeness,  says  the  story — to  his  presence.  The 
King  receives  him  angrily,  charging  him  with  having 
cheated  him  of  certain  lands  in  Middlesex  (i.e.  Charter- 
house). North  humbly  pleads  that  the  King  had  given 
them  to  him,  and  the  King,  presently  pacified,  treats 
him  graciously.  I  am  afraid  the  tale,  however  picturesque, 
has  little  in  it  to  convince.  North  received  the  letters 
patent  for  Charterhouse  in  April,  1545.  Henry  died  Jan.  28, 
1547.  This  interview,  if  it  ever  took  place,  must  have 
happened  between  those  dates.  Now  North  had  already 
become  a  most  conspicuous  figure  among  Henry's  servants 
as  Chancellor  of  the  Augmentations,  a  court  very  near 
to  Henry's  purse,  which  I  fear  was  carried  very  near  his 
heart.  And  there  could  have  been  few  corners  of  Henry's 
realm  more  deeply  impressed  on  his  mind  than  Charter- 
house and  all  that  brought  it  to  his  memory.  It  is  incon- 
ceivable that  Henry  should,  in  the  short  possible  interval, 
have  so  lost  touch  with  his  minister  and  his  affairs. 
Nor  can  we  imagine  Henry,  even  in  his  most  gouty  moments, 
adopting  a  method  so  casual  when  a  notice  to  the  Augmenta- 
tion Office  would  have  brought  the  information.  Moreover, 
in  1546  North  had  already  become  a  member  of  Henry's 
Privy  Council,  and  in  that  same  year,  as  death  approached, 
Henry,  making  his  will,  had  nominated  North  as  one  of 
the  sixteen  executors  who  were  to  act  as  guardians  to 
Edward  VI.  The  rapid  change  from  the  complete  ignorance 
implied  in  the  tale  to  the  complete  confidence  implied  in 
the  facts,  in  so  short  a  time,  compels  us  to  put  aside  the 
picturesque  story,  where  many  another  of  the  tales  which 
hang  about  the  history  of  Charterhouse  have  had  to  go. 

In  Edward's  reign,  North  remained  a  Privy  Councillor, 
and  we  find  him  as  witness  to  Edward's  will,  but  he  resigned, 
under  pressure,  it  is  said,  the  Chancellorship  of  Augmenta- 
tions. As  Edward's  death  drew  near,  and  John  Dudley, 


NORTHUMBERLAND,    JANE   GREY         117 

Duke  of  Northumberland,  matured  his  plans  for  the 
succession  of  his  daughter-in-law,  Lady  Jane  Grey,  North, 
in  appearance  at  least,  threw  in  his  lot  with  the  great 
nobleman.  His  name  appears  upon  the  long  list  of  those 
who  had  been  gathered  at  Greenwich  by  Northumberland, 
and  who,  headed  by  Cranmer,  signed  the  document  which 
declared  the  Lady  Jane  to  be  the  heir  to  the  throne,  Mary 
and  Elizabeth  disqualified  by  taint  of  birth.  For  once  he 
had,  like  so  many  others,  fully  compromised  himself. 
Possibly  the  reason  of  this  may  not  be  far  to  seek. 
He  had,  it  would  seem,  resolved  to  abandon  public 
life  and  retire  to  Kirtling.  For  he  was  at  this  very 
moment  in  negotiation  with  Northumberland  for  the 
sale  of  Charterhouse,  and  the  deed  of  sale,  in  which  no 
sum  of  purchase  money  is  mentioned,  is  dated  May  4,  1553, 
and,  for  the  time,  Charterhouse  was  no  longer  his. 
Northumberland  became  its  owner. 

One  has  to  ask,  What  was  Northumberland's  object 
in  buying  Charterhouse  ?  He  was  already  owner  of  the 
magnificent  palace  of  Durham  House  in  the  Strand.  But 
Guildford  Dudley  and  Lady  Jane  Grey  had  no  separate 
palace  in  London.  They  were  both  living  with  their 
father  at  Durham  House  when  they  were  sent  for  their 
death  to  the  Tower.  I  am  persuaded  that  Northumberland 
bought  Charterhouse  in  1553  as  a  palace  for  his  son  and 
daughter,  till  the  day  should  come — it  was  not  at  that 
moment  imminent — when  Lady  Jane  should  be  Queen 
of  England.  Northumberland  had  already  stored  St.  John's 
Priory  with  furniture  for  the  mansion  in  Charterhouse.  If 
Edward's  life  had  been  prolonged,  there  might  have  been 
many  years  of  occupancy  for  Guildford  Dudley  and  for 
Jane.  The  site  was  good  enough,  moreover,  even  for  a 
Queen's  Palace  to  arise  within  it.  But,  for  himself,  it  is 
difficult  to  suppose  that  Northumberland  would  have 
needed  it. 

The  death  of  Edward  on  July  6,  1553,  brought  with  it 
the  moment  for  testing  Northumberland's  scheme,  as  ill 
conducted  as  it  was  ill  conceived.  He  had  failed  to  reckon 
his  own  unpopularity  and  his  own  incapacity.  In  less  than 


118  EDWARD  LORD  NORTH 

seven  weeks  all  was  over.  When  John  Dudley  died  on 
Tower  Hill  on  August  22,  this  second  owner  of  the  mansion 
of  Charterhouse  had  held  it  for  fifteen  weeks  and  three 
days  only.  It  at  once  reverted,  with  all  his  other  pos- 
sessions, to  the  Crown. 

Sir  Edward  North  had,  as  we  have  seen,  signed  the 
Greenwich  declaration  in  favour  of  Queen  Jane.  He  had 
thereby  incurred  the  guilt  and  the  fate  of  a  traitor.  But 
within  a  few  months  we  find  him  not  merely  pardoned — 
the  greater  number  of  the  signatories  were  so — but  receiv- 
ing from  Mary  the  grant  once  more  of  Charterhouse.  Pro- 
bably no  money  had  passed  from  Northumberland  to  North. 
The  deed,  signed  by  Mary,  is  merely  a  repetition  of  that 
by  which  her  father  had  originally  conveyed  the  monastery 
to  North,  but  the  brief  preamble  contains  the  statement 
that  Mary's  grant  to  North  was  in  recognition  of  services 
rendered.  One  at  once  has  to  ask,  in  face  of  the  Greenwich 
declaration,  what  were  these  services  ?  It  can  only 
suggest  itself,  and  Dudley  North  himself  suggests  it  without 
any  reprobation  of  his  ancestor's  supposed  treachery, 
that  though  North  had  on  paper  sided  with  the  conspirators 
he  had  secretly  given  Mary  an  assurance  of  his  support. 
Be  this  how  it  may,  North  was  now  once  more  owner  of 
Charterhouse,  and  in  high  favour  with  Mary  for  the  rest 
of  her  reign.  It  was  probably  this  very  favour  which 
made  him  abandon  the  idea  of  retiring  to  Kirtling  from 
public  life.  Under  Mary  he  was  once  more  a  Privy  Coun- 
cillor, one  of  the  nobles  told  off  to  receive  Philip  II  on  his 
arrival.  He  became  Baron  North  of  Kirtling,  and  was 
put  upon  the  Council  for  the  arrest  and  punishment  of 
heretics. 

Once  more  the  scene  changes.  When  the  daughter 
of  Catharine  of  Aragon  ended  her  pathetic  life  in  November, 
1558,  and  the  daughter  of  Anne  Boleyn  took  her  place 
upon  the  English  throne,  by  what  means  was  North  to 
make  for  himself  the  transition  from  Queen  Mary  to  Queen 
Elizabeth  as  easy,  as  profitable  withal,  as  the  transition 
from  Queen  Jane  to  Queen  Mary  had  been  ?  The  practised 
courtier  proved  equal  to  the  occasion.  Either  on  his 


ELIZABETH   AT   CHARTERHOUSE          119 

own  offer  or  on  a  suggestion  made  to  him,  it  was  arranged 
that  Elizabeth  on  her  entry  into  London  should  be  his 
guest  at  Charterhouse.* 

Mary  had  died  before  the  dawn  of  Nov.  17.  On  Nov.  20, 
a  Sunday,  Elizabeth  had  held  her  first  Council  of  State 
at  Hatfield,  but  her  meeting  with  the  general  body  of  her 
nobles  and  gentlemen  was  not  yet.  On  the  Wednesday, 
Nov.  23,  she  set  out  from  Hatfield  and  rode  to  London. 
At  Highgate  the  Bishops  met  her  and  kissed  her  hand  one 
by  one.  It  was  then  that  as  Bonner  approached  she  drew 
back  her  hand  in  horror  from  him.  After  a  brief  delay 
the  cavalcade  set  out  again.  As  they  passed  across  the 
low  lands  between  Islington  and  Charterhouse  over  which 
the  mists  were  rising  that  late  November  afternoon,  the 
Queen's  highway  proved  so  atrocious  that  the  whole 
company  abandoned  it  and  took  to  the  open  fields,  entering 
Charterhouse  at  the  back,  instead  of  again  taking  to  the 
road  which  would  have  led  them  round  to  the  main  entrance 
in  Charterhouse  Churchyard.  That  same  evening  came 
greeting  from  Don  Gomez  Suarez  de  Figuerra  de  Cordova, 
Conde  de  Feria,  ambassador  to  Philip  II.  With  the 
greeting  sent  as  from  Philip  came  also  a  ring  as  from  him. 
Next  day  Elizabeth  held  her  first  reception  in  London. 
The  Courtyards  and  the  Throne  Room  (Tapestry  Room) 
were  thronged  with  the  great  stream  of  titled  and  untitled 
subjects  who  came  to  do  homage  to  "  the  splendid  Tudor 
girl."  Amongst  them  came,  this  time  in  person,  and 
once  more  carrying  some  of  the  rings  which  the  dying 
Mary  had  handed  to  Feria's  fiancee  (Jane  Dormer)  for  con- 
veyance to  Elizabeth.  The  Queen,  by  one  account,  received 
him  graciously,  by  another  account  with  coldness.  It 
seems  that  the  magnificent  future  ruler  of  the  Netherlands 
had  introduced  his  master's  suit  with  little  fear  of  a  refusal,  f 
But  Elizabeth,  at  five  and  twenty,  had  served  as  long  an 

*  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  only  royal  palace  in  London, 
St.  James,  was  out  of  the  question,  since  there  the  dead  Queen  Mary 
lay,  waiting  her  funeral  at  Westminster  more  than  three  weeks  later. 

t  Feria's  very  frank  description  of  the  scene  in  the  Tapestry 
Boom  is  contained  in  a  letter  to  his  master  Philip  II,  once  in  the 
archives  at  Simancas,  now  removed  to  Madrid. 


120  EDWARD  LORD   NORTH 

apprenticeship  to  the  ways  of  the  world  as  Feria  himself 
with  all  his  diplomacy.  It  is  certain  that  at  no  distant 
date  from  the  Charterhouse  interview  Feria  had  learnt 
that  he  had  met  his  match  and  hated  her  to  the  end  of 
his  life  with  an  undying  hatred. 

The  Queen  remained  five  days  in  Charterhouse,  and 
every  day  the  throngs  and  the  enthusiasm — genuine, 
moreover,  as  it  had  been  five  sad  years  ago,  for  her  sister — 
grew  every  day.  On  the  sixth  day  she  set  out  for  the 
Tower,  whence  to  proceed,  according  to  the  ancient  etiquette 
for  sovereigns,  to  her  cornation  at  Westminster.  It  was 
a  splendid  company  that  was  marshalled  that  day  in  the 
little  entrance  court  between  the  gatehouse  and  the  portal 
of  North's  palace.  When  the  Queen  came  down  and 
took  her  place  the  gorgeous  procession  moved  forward 
amongst  the  crowds  gathered  along  her  route.  Let  Henry 
Machyn  add  the  colour  to  the  scene  in  his  own  quaint 
words  and  quainter  spelling — 

"  The  xxviijth  day  of  November  the  Queen  removed 
to  the  Tower  from  the  Lord  North's  plasse  which  was  the 
Charter  Howsse.  The  stretes  unto  the  Tower  of  London 
was  newe  gravelled.  Her  grace  rod  thrugh  Barbecan  and 
Crepulgat,  by  London  Wall  unto  Bysshope-gate  and  up 
to  Leden-halle  and  through  Gracyus  Strett  and  Fanchyrche 
Strett ;  and  a-for  rod  gentyllmen  and  knyghtes  and 
lordes  and  after  cam  all  the  trumpets  blohyng  and  then 
cam  all  the  haroldes  in  a-ray ;  and  my  lord  of  Pembroke 
bare  the  Quen's  sword  ;  then  cam  her  Grace  on  horsbake  in 
purple  welvett  with  a  skarpe  abowt  her  neke  and  serganttes 
of  armes  abowt  here'  Grace ;  and  next  after  rod  Robart 
Dudley  her  master  of  her  horse ;  and  so  the  gard  with 
halberds.  Ther  was  shyche  shutying  of  Gunes  as  never 
was  hard  a-for  ;  so  to  the  towre  with  all  the  nobulles.  And 
so  here  Grace  lay  in  the  towre  unto  the  V  day  of  Dessember 
that  was  sant  Necolas  evyn.  And  ther  was  in  serten 
plasses  Chylderyn  with  speches  and  odur  places  syngyng 
and  playing  with  regalles." 

And  so  the  great  procession  passed  out  of  the  gatehouse 
and  left  the  owner  of  the  Charterhouse  to  his  reflections. 


NORFOLK  121 

Elizabeth  might  use  a  subject's  wealth  to  her  entertain- 
ment, but  she  was  far  too  shrewd  a  judge  of  character  to 
make  use  of  such  an  one  as  North  in  any  position  of  great 
trust  for  her  perilous  passage  in  the  days  that  lay  before. 
In  each  of  the  three  previous  reigns  he  had  served  as 
Privy  Councillor.  Elizabeth  dispensed  with  his  services. 
Dudley  North  tells  us  that  his  ancestor  had  already  been 
living  about  this  time  above  his  income  and  Elizabeth 
was  an  expensive  guest.  North  took  no  great  gain  from 
the  days  which  Elizabeth  had  spent  in  Charterhouse. 

There  were  other  figures  marshalled  in  the  Courtyard 
that  day  besides  North  and  the  Queen  herself  who  were 
destined  to  join  their  names  to  the  history  of  Charterhouse. 
One  of  these  was  young  Thomas  Howard,  fourth  Duke  of 
Norfolk,  a  boy  of  twenty-two,  who  sat  his  horse  waiting 
to  take  his  place  at  the  head  of  the  nobles  as  premier  peer 
of  England.  He  had  already  a  great  eye  for  a  palace  as 
for  anything  else  that  tasted  of  magnificence,  and  it  may 
be  that  that  day  he  had  cast  longing  eyes  on  the  place  that 
was  to  be  his  some  seven  years  hence,  and  which  was  to 
weave  itself  so  closely  into  his  story  and  his  fate. 

Once  more,  three  years  later,  one  knows  not  exactly 
why,  Elizabeth  spent  three  days  as  North's  guest  at 
Charterhouse  from  July  10  to  July  13,  coming  thither 
from  a  visit  of  a  few  hours  to  the  Tower 

"  for  the  inspectun  of  her  mynts  and  her  Grace  whent 
owt  of  the  Yron  Gatt  over  Tower  Hyll  unto  Algatt  Chyrche 
and  so  down  Hondyche  to  the  Spyttyll  and  so  downe 
Hoge  lane  and  over  the  feldes  to  the  Charter  howse  my 
Lord  North's  plase  [here  follows  the  description  of  her 
pageant  once  again]  .  .  .  and  the  feldes  of  pepull  gret 
nomber  as  ever  was  sene  and  ther  tared  till  Monday." 

We  read  in  Machyn  how  one  of  these  nights — his  state- 
ment is  confused — she  rode  from  "  the  Chaterhouse  by 
Clarkynewell  over  the  feldes  unto  the  Sayvoy  unto 
master  secretore  Sysselle  to  soper,"  and  how  "  after  grett 


122  EDWARD  LORD  NORTH 

chere  tyll  mydnyght  "  .  .  .  "  she  ryd  to  bed  at  the  Charter- 
house." 

Once  more,  on  the  fourth  day  (July  13)  the  streets  were 
new  gravelled  with  sand,  and  the  procession  formed  up  in 
the  courtyard  for  a  royal  progress  through  the  city  more 
gorgeous  than  the  first.  Machyn  gives  the  route  as  Smith- 
field,  Newgate,  St.  Nichilas'  Shambles,  Cheapside,  Cornhyll 
to  Aldgate,  Whitechapel  and  back  :  "  and  all  thes  plases 
where  hangyd  with  cloth  of  arres  and  carpetes  and  with 
sylke  and  Chepeside  hangyd  with  Cloth  of  Gold  and  Cloth 
of  Sylver  and  velvett  of  all  colours  and  taffatas." 

This  time,  tradition  has  it  that  when  the  Queen  had 
left  Charterhouse  its  owner  found  himself  something  like 
a  ruined  man,  and  that  this  was  the  cause  of  his  giving  up 
public  life  and  spending  most  of  his  time  at  Kirtling 
Towers.  It  may  be  so,  but  for  myself  I  think  another 
reason  the  more  probable.  He  was  getting  old.  No  man 
understood  the  signs  of  the  times  better  than  he.  For 
him,  under  Elizabeth,  public  life  had  closed.  He  had 
played  the  great  game  with  all  its  changes  and  chances 
for  fully  fifty  years.  It  was  time  for  him  to  be  gone  from 
it  all,  and  so,  in  1564,  the  last  year  of  his  life,  he  was  in 
treaty  with  Thomas  Howard,  fourth  Duke  of  Norfolk,  for 
the  sale  of  Charterhouse.  He  was  back  there  in  December, 
but  the  hand  of  death  was  on  him.  The  last  day  of  the 
year  was  the  last  day  of  his  life.  The  contract  was  still 
unsigned  when  the  new  year  came  in,  and  Edward  North 
had  already  passed  to  his  rest.  It  was  signed  next  day 
by  his  son,  Lord  Roger  North,  who  thus,  for  a  few  hours 
only,  was  owner  of  Charterhouse,  which  from  Jan.  1,  1565, 
was  to  bear  the  name  of  Howard  House. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HOWARD  HOUSE— THE  FOURTH  DUKE  OF  NORFOLK 

WHEN,  on  Jan.  1,  1565,  the  day  after  the  death  of  Lord 
North,  Charterhouse  became  the  legal  property  of  the  Duke 
of  Norfolk,  it  thereby  obtained  the  name  of  Howard  House 
which  it  was  to  bear  through  three  successive  ownerships. 
The  name,  indeed,  did  not  entirely  supplant  that  of  Charter- 
house. Both  names  are  found  in  constant  use  till  the 
foundation  of  the  Hospital  in  1611.  The  name  of  Howard 
House  then  dropped  out  of  use,  though  it  reappears  from 
time  to  time  and  the  ordinance  map  of  London  late  in  the 
nineteenth  century  still  showed  the  name.  Thomas 
Howard,*  fourth  Duke  of  Norfolk,  was  twenty-nine  years  old 
when  he  became  the  owner  of  Charterhouse.  He  was  the 
grandson  of  that  Thomas  Howard,  third  Duke  of  Norfolk, 
who  filled  so  large  a  place  in  the  history  of  Henry  VIII's 
day,  and  who  on  the  night  of  Jan.  27,  1547,  lay  in  the 
Tower  awaiting  execution  on  Tower  Hill  next  morning. 
But  the  night  brought  with  it  the  death  of  Henry  himself, 
and  the  Constable  on  his  own  responsibility  postponed  the 
execution  till  the  pleasure  of  the  Council  should  be  known. 
Spared,  but  imprisoned  during  Edward's  reign,  and  restored 
to  his  title  by  Mary,  he  had  lived  to  see  the  death  of  his 
enemy  Northumberland,  and  dying  in  1554,  the  first  year 
of  Mary's  reign,  had  been  succeeded  by  his  grandson, 
our  Thomas  Howard,  then  a  boy  of  eighteen. 

His  son,  Henry  Earl  of  Surrey — commonly  known  as 

*  There  had  been  earlier  Dukes  of  Norfolk  of  the  Mowbray  line. 
One  of  these  in  the  reign  of  Richard  II  had  founded  the  Charterhouse 
of  Epworth  in  Axholme,  where  bis  arms  may  still  be  seen  on  the 
farmhouse  which  occupies  one  of  the  monastic  buildings. 

123 


124        THE   FOURTH  DUKE  OF  NORFOLK 

Surrey  the  poet — had  died  on  the  scaffold  in  1536,  the  year 
before  Henry's  death,  and  had  been  the  direct  or  indirect 
cause  of  the  fall  of  his  father.  Their  disaster  had  been 
brought  about  by  Hertford's  influence.  Surrey,  young, 
vain,  gallant — described  as  "  the  most  foolish  proud  boy 
in  England — was  free  and  reckless  of  speech,  and  not 
discreet  of  conduct.  He  had  twice  suffered  imprisonment 
in  the  Fleet  prison  at  the  order  of  the  Council  for  such 
enormities  as  shooting  pebbles  at  citizens'  windows  of  a 
night,  and  for  eating  meat  in  Lent.  He  had  been  bravely 
rash  at  the  siege  of  Boulogne  in  1545 ;  and  a  year  later, 
when  Henry's  death  drew  near  and  men  in  taverns  dis- 
cussed the  question  of  the  coming  Protector  for  the  boy- 
King  Edward,  Surrey  had  talked  loudly  of  his  father's 
claims  in  preference  to  those  of  Hertford.  Brought  to 
trial  for  these  vapourings  and  further  charged  with  having 
quartered  the  arms  of  Edward  the  Confessor  on  his  own — 
according  to  an  ancient  grant,  as  he  alleged,  of  Richard  II 
to  Thomas  Mowbray — he  was  condemned  on  the  evidence 
of  his  friend  Sir  Richard  Southwell,  and  of  his  own  sister, 
married  to  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  illegitimate  son  of  the 
King.  Technically  guilty  of  high  treason  he  laid  down 
his  life  at  the  age  of  thirty  on  Tower  Hill.  To-day  there 
are  few  Sundays  on  which  worse  treason  is  not  uttered  in 
Hyde  Park.  Surrey  died  less  of  his  own  treason  than 
of  Henry's  gout. 

His  two  sons,  Thomas,  aged  ten,  and  Henry  Earl  of 
Northampton,  were  handed  over  by  the  Privy  Council 
to  the  care,  not  of  their  mother,  but  of  their  aunt,  Mary 
Fitzroy,  the  Duchess  of  Richmond — a  choice  which  was 
evidently  due  to  the  belief  that  the  Countess  of  Surrey 
was  a  devoted  adherent  of  the  old  religion.  The  boy 
lost,  thereby,  a  mother  as  well  as  a  father.  John  Foxe, 
the  martyrologist,  then  in  deep  poverty,  was  selected 
as  his  tutor  and  seems  to  have  won  the  boy's  affection, 
since  it  was  he  to  whom  the  Duke  sent  in  1572  when  his 
own  hour  was  come.  But  in  1553,  when  the  grandfather 
was  set  at  liberty,  Foxe  was  removed  and  White,  Bishop 
of  Lincoln,  substituted.  In  that  same  year  he  acted  as 


THE  FOURTH  DUKE  OF  NORFOLK        125 

first  gentleman  to  Philip  II  on  his  arrival  in  England — 
he  and  Philip  were  destined  to  have  other  relationship 
later  on — and  the  next  year  saw  the  boy  installed  at  his 
grandfather's  death  as  Duke  of  Norfolk  and  Earl  Marshal 
of  England  (August  25,  1554). 

It  cannot  be  supposed  that  the  bringing  up  which  we 
have  described  in  the  home  of  his  vice-mother,  Mary 
Fitzroy,  had  been  an  ideal  training  in  self -discipline  and 
strength  of  character  for  a  boy  who  had  no  doubt  inherited 
from  his  father  some  of  his  foolish  proudness  and  some 
too  of  his  more  dangerous  traits,  and  who  found  himself,  at 
the  age  of  eighteen,  the  premier  peer  of  England,  possessed 
of  all  the  means  for  gratifying  his  innate  love  of  splendour. 
When  a  few  years  later  he  proudly  told  Elizabeth,  who 
taxed  him  roundly  with  his  ambition  to  marry  Mary  of 
Scots,  that  he  counted  himself  more  than  Mary's  equal 
when  he  found  himself  in  his  own  Castle  of  Norwich,  the 
speech,  from  many  points  of  view,  was  typical  of  the  man. 
Descended  from  Edward  IV,  a  cousin  of  Queen  Katharine 
Howard,  a  cousin  of  Queen  Anne  Boleyn,  and  therefore  of 
Elizabeth,  who  indeed  used  to  call  him  "  cousin,"  he  had 
in  his  veins  blood  as  royal  as  that  of  the  daughter  of  Mary 
of  Guise,  and  pride,  perhaps,  to  correspond.  We  have 
seen  him  as  Earl  Marshal  heading  Elizabeth's  cavalcade 
as  it  rode  from  the  doors  of  Lord  North's  Charterhouse. 
From  that  time  forward  he  was  to  dance  attendance,  like 
many  another  young  noble,  on  the  imperious  Lady.  She 
sent  him,  perhaps  to  make  trial  of  the  stuff  that  was  in 
him,  in  1559  to  take  command  of  the  Army  of  the  North, 
much  against  his  will,  for  the  defence  of  Newcastle,  but, 
shrewdly  enough,  with  Sir  Ralph  Sadler  and  Sir  John 
Croft  as  his  advisers.  He  returned  next  year  to  Court 
life  in  London.  Already  he  had  been  twice  married.  In 
1556  he  had  taken  to  wife  the  Lady  Mary  Fitzalan,  daughter 
of  the  twelfth  Earl  of  Arundel,  who  died  on  August  27 
of  the  next  year,  a  month  or  two  after  the  birth  of  her  son. 
This  boy,  to  whom  Philip  II  stood  godfather,  was  to  become 
Philip  Earl  of  Arundel,  the  next  owner  of  Charterhouse. 
In  1558,  at  the  age  of  22,  Norfolk  married  Lady  Margaret 

K 


126        THE  FOURTH  DUKE  OF  NORFOLK 

Audley,*  daughter  of  Lord  Chancellor  Audley,  of  Audley 
Inn  or  End  at  Saffron  Walden.  She  became  the  mother 
of  Lord  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Suffolk,  who  was  presently 
to  sell  Charterhouse  to  Thomas  Sutton.  But  to  return 
to  Norfolk  himself.  In  1563,  by  the  death  of  Margaret 
Audley,  Norfolk  was  once  more  a  widower,  and  still  con- 
stantly in  attendance  on  Elizabeth.  He  was  with  her  in 
1564  when  she  went  to  Cambridge.  It  was  on  this  occasion 
that  the  sight  of  the  unfinished  buildings  of  Magdalen 
College,  which  his  father-in-law,  Lord  Audley,  had  left,  led 
him  to  make  a  gift  towards  their  completion. 

In  January,  1565,  Norfolk  entered  into  possession  of 
Charterhouse,  and  he  seems  at  once  to  have  set  about 
the  changes  which  were  to  make  it  perhaps  the  finest 
palace  in  London.  With  these  I  must  deal  more  exactly 
in  the  next  chapter.  In  1567  he  brought  home  to  it  his 
third  duchess,  Elizabeth  Leyburne,  daughter  of  Sir  Francis 
Leyburne,  of  Cunswick  Hall,  Cumberland.  But  the  poor 
lady's  days  in  Charterhouse  were  few,  for  she  died  on 
Sept.  7  of  that  year.  It  was  very  soon  after  this  third 
widowhood,  namely,  on  August  5,  1568,  that  Norfolk 
entertained  Queen  Elizabeth  at  Howard  House.  It  was 
her  third  visit  to  the  place,  though  her  first  to  him.  Once 
more  we  get  the  picturesque  vision  of  her  progress  as  she 
passes  from  the  Tower  through  the  streets  crowded  with 
her  subjects,  the  Queen,  delighted  at  her  reception,  stand- 
ing up  from  time  to  time  to  get  a  better  view.  De  Silva, 
the  Spanish  Ambassador,  shows  in  a  letter  to  his  master, 
Philip  II,  how  greatly  the  scene  impressed  him,  but  of 
the  reception  itself  at  Howard  House  we  have  no  record. 
It  was,  this  time,  only  for  one  day.  One  wonders  how 
matters  stood  between  Norfolk  and  the  Queen  that  August 
afternoon,  for  already  there  were  rumours  in  the  air  of 
another  marriage  for  Norfolk — and  Elizabeth  was  no  fool, 
except  in  her  own  'matrimonial  affairs.  Men  had  already 
been  talking  of  Norfolk  as  a  match  for  Mary  Stuart — 

*  The  mistake  of  various  historians  of  Charterhouse  who  record 
that  Lord  Audley  owned  the  suppressed  monastery  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  VIII  is  doubtless  to  be  traced  to  this  source.  Audley  never 
owned  Charterhouse. 


ELIZABETH   IN   GREAT   HALL  127 

probably  were  talking  of  it  that  day  at  Charterhouse 
out  of  ear-shot  of  the  Queen.  She  sat  that  day  among 
her  courtiers  in  the  Banquet  Hall  a  very  few  yards  away 
from  the  rooms  in  which  the  treason  was  to  be  hatched, 
which,  if  it  had  succeeded,  would  have  taken  from  her  her 
throne  and  perhaps  her  life. 

It  is  often  stated  that  it  was  at  the  Conference  of  York 
in  October  of  that  year  that  the  first  suggestion  of  the 
marriage  was  made  to  Norfolk  by  Maitland  of  Lethington. 
No  doubt  both  the  latter  and  John  Lesley,  Bishop  of  Ross, 
did  talk  of  it  to  him  at  York,  but  at  that  very  time  Lord 
Montague  had  spoken  of  it  to  Don  Gueran  d'Espes,  the 
Spanish  Ambassador,  as  a  thing  which  had  been  for  some 
time  arranged,  not  indeed  between  the  two  principals, 
but  by  Lord  Arundel  and  his  party,  and  Gueran  duly  sent 
the  news  to  Philip  II.  The  thing,  beyond  doubt,  had 
already  taken  shape  in  Norfolk's  mind.  His  sister,  Mar- 
garet Howard,  Lady  Scrope,  wife  to  Lord  Scrope,  who  was 
in  charge  of  Mary  at  Carlisle  Castle,  was  to  act  as  his  agent 
in  his  love  affair — if  that  can  be  called  a  love  affair  where 
neither  lover  was  destined  ever  to  set  eyes  upon  the  other. 
Lady  Scrope  let  Mary  know  from  her  brother  that  she 
had  little  to  fear  from  the  York  Conference. 

Norfolk  duly  went  that  October  to  York  as  Chief 
English  Commissioner,  with  Lord  Sussex  and  Sir  Ralph 
Sadler  as  his  colleagues,  to  meet  the  Scottish  Commis- 
sioners— Moray,  the  Bishop  of  Ross  (Lesley),  and  others — 
all  gathered  there  nominally  to  find  a  method  of  peace 
between  Mary  and  her  subjects,  but  actually — for  so 
the  commission  was  regarded  and  treated — to  inquire 
into  the  share  of  Mary  in  the  murder  of  Darnley.  The 
commission  was  as  futile  as  its  sequel  at  Westminster 
that  winter.  But  before  it  ended  Moray,  under  a  strong 
challenge,  produced  the  famous  Casket  letters  which,  if 
Mary  really  wrote  them,  proved  her  to  be  a  guilty  and 
abandoned  woman.  It  is  no  task  for  this  book  to  inquire 
whether  they  were  or  were  not  genuine.  It  is  quite  certain 
that  Norfolk,  unless  he  lied,  thought  them  so.  But  the 
idea  of  the  marriage  had  dazzled  him,  and  his  moral  sense 


128   THE  FOURTH  DUKE  OF  NORFOLK 

was  not  strong  enough  to  let  the  matter  weigh  against 
the  hope  of  becoming  King  Consort  of  Scotland  and, 
perhaps,  in  his  secretly  growing  thoughts,  something 
more  than  that. 

A  month  or  so  later  Norfolk  received  orders  from  Eliza- 
beth to  go  to  Berwick  *  to  inspect  the  defences  of  the  town 
— a  convenient  method  of  putting  an  end  to  a  hopeless 
situation. 

That  winter  and  all  the  next  spring  the  rumours  grew 
and  spread  in  London,  and  not  without  reason.  John 
Lesley,  Bishop  of  Ross,  till  lately  attendant  on  Mary 
in  her  captivity  at  Tutbury,  was  now  her  Ambassador  in 
London.  He  had  been  one  of  that  strange  party  which 
two  days  after  the  mock  trial  of  Bothwell  for  Darnley's 
murder  had  dined  with  him  at  Ainslie's  Tavern  in  Edin- 
burgh, and  had  drawn  up  an  advice  that  Bothwell  should 
marry  Mary.  Able,  subtle,  unscrupulous,  he  had  the  one 
virtue  that  he  was  faithful  to  his  mistress  through  good 
repute  and  evil.  He  now  became  her  agent  in  the  strange 
dealings  with  Norfolk.  But  he  was  presently  to  prove 
no  match  for  Cecil,  from  whom  little  that  happened  in 
England  ever  remained  for  long  a  secret.  By  the  summer 
of  1569,  Cecil,  and  Elizabeth  through  him,  knew  nearly 
as  much  as  Ross  and  Norfolk.  Elizabeth  sent  for  Norfolk 
to  Hampton  Court,  and  one  day  in  the  garden,  seizing  him 
by  the  elbow  and  giving  him  a  meaning  pinch,  bade  him 
take  heed  on  what  pillow  he  laid  his  head.  Norfolk  protested 
loudly — must  surely  have  seemed  to  that  shrewd  lady  to 
protest  too  much — that  he  knew  nothing  of  such  ambitions, 
and  in  short  had  but  a  poor  opinion  of  Her  Majesty  of 
Scotland,  f  and  so  forth,  with  the  further  result  that  before 
he  left  Hampton  Court  he  had  signed  an  undertaking  to 
have  no  dealings  of  the  kind.  Elizabeth  charged  him  on 
his  allegiance  J  to  be  true  to  his  word.  And  perhaps 

*  A  little  more  than  a  year  later  Captain  Thomas  Sutton,  who 
had  already  in  1558-9  commanded  a  company  at  Berwick,  was  made 
Master- General  of  the  Ordnance  for  Berwick  and  the  North. 

t  He  called  the  Queen  of  Scots  "  a  notorious  adulteress  and 
murderess." 

%  At   his   trial   Norfolk   drew   a   curious   distinction  somewhat 


NORFOLK   IN   THE   TOWER  129 

that  day  he  meant  to  be  so,  but  before  the  summer  was  out 
Norfolk's  promises  had  gone  to  make  pavement  else- 
where. 

Meanwhile  Norfolk  had  set  foot  upon  another  path 
of  danger.  He  had  joined  in  a  plot  against  Cecil  which 
had  easily  been  discovered.  He  had  gone  back  from  the 
interview  at  Hampton  Court  to  Howard  House,  and 
Cecil  knew  well  what  he  was  doing  there.  The  Regent, 
Murray,  had  betrayed  to  Elizabeth  the  gist  of  a  talk 
which  he  had  with  Norfolk,  and  the  latter  was  even  now 
from  his  privie  chamber  *  arranging  for  Mary's  rescue 
from  Wingfield.  Norfolk  was  summoned  to  her  presence 
once  more,  and  had  left  the  court  without  taking  leave. 
A  royal  pursuivant  was  sent  to  Howard  House  to  fetch 
him.  He  was,  he  said,  too  ill  of  ague  to  leave  his  house, 
and  so,  irresolute,  he  stayed  a-bed  and  let  his  moment 
of  action  go  past.  When  he  left  it  he  went  not  to  Hampton 
Court  but  to  Kenninghall  in  Suffolk.  That  October 
Elizabeth  herself  took  action.  She  summoned  him  once 
more.  With  a  few  horsemen  ("  pocos  caballos,"  reported 
Gueran)  he  rode  back  to  Howard  House.  On  his  way 
thence  to  Windsor  he  was  arrested,  and  after  a  short 
sojourn  at  Burnham  was,  on  Oct.  8,  1569,  transferred  to 
the  Tower. 

It  was  this  moment  that  the  Northern  Earls,  Northum- 
berland and  Westmoreland,  in  whose  plot  Norfolk  was 
deeply  compromised — his  youngest  sister  Jane  was  West- 
moreland's wife  moreover — chose  for  their  rising.  Dis- 
mayed at  the  arrest  of  Norfolk  on  whom  they  had  counted, 
they  looked  for  a  like  fate  for  themselves  and  struck  the 
blow  which  was  both  too  late  and  too  early.  The  rebellion, 
as  poorly  timed  as  poorly  carried  out,  with  two  half-hearted 
incapable  leaders,  melted  before  a  not  very  formidable 
advance  of  the  Queen's  troops.  The  ignominious  flight 
of  the  last  relics  of  the  rebels'  host  from  Durham  to  Hexham, 
in  December,  put  an  end  to  the  ill-starred  enterprise.  There 

indicative  of  his  type  of  mind.  He  admitted  that  Elizabeth  had 
charged  him,  but  was  not  sure  she  had  charged  him  "  on  his 
allegiance." 

*  The  room  overlooking  the  Master's  Court  at  Charterhouse. 


130        THE  FOURTH  DUKE  OF  NORFOLK 

was  at  Darlington  a  letter  written  on  Dec.  18  by  Captain 
Thomas  Sutton,*  the  future  Founder  of  Charterhouse, 
who  served  as  an  officer  with  Warwick's  troops,  which 
describes  the  rout  of  the  day  before.  The  miserable  failure 
of  his  friends  should  have  given  pause  to  Norfolk  in  the 
Tower.  But  he  was  blind  now  to  every  vision  save  that 
of  the  Scottish  Throne,  to  which  at  length  had  been 
added  also  that  of  the  English  Throne. 

For  all  the  next  year,  1570,  Norfolk  was,  as  best  he 
could  manage,  in  communication  still  with  Ross  and  the 
agents  of  the  Scottish  Queen.  By  means  of  a  certain 
maid  named  "  Nell,"  presently  to  be  housemaid  at  Howard 
House,  he  got  his  letters  conveyed  from  the  Tower  to 
Charterhouse.  But  early  in  August,  1570,  the  plague 
being  severe  in  the  Tower  Hamlets,  Norfolk  was  allowed 
to  return  to  Howard  House  with  Sir  Henry  Neville,  who 
lived  there  as  his  custodian.  Whatever  vigilance  Neville 
may  have  observed  at  first,  it  soon  degenerated  into  the 
utmost  laxity.  Ross  and  Ridolfi  were  brought  in  past 
the  doors  of  the  chamber  where  Neville  f  lay  in  bed  at 
9  of  the  evening — and  "  Backdores  "  were  left  open  for 
Ross  to  come  in  by.  One  is  compelled  to  suspect  that 
such  carelessness  was  not  of  neglect,  but  perhaps  of  William 
Cecil's  suggestion.  He  knew  where  to  lay  his  hand  on 
his  witnesses  whenever  he  wanted  them,  and  the  more 
evidence  of  treason  they  could  furnish  him  with  the 
better. 

Norfolk  spent  his  enforced  residence  in  Charterhouse 
that  year  in  two  ways.  Partly  in  decorating  and  improv- 
ing his  mansion — had  he  any  thought  that  it  might  be 
needed  for  a  Higher  Fortune  ? — and  we  find  that  to  this 
period  belongs  the  noble  screen  of  our  Great  Hall,  which 
bears  the  initials  and  date  T.N.  1571.  To  these  months, 
from  August,  1570  to  Sept.,  1571,  belongs  also  the  brick- 
covered  arcade  and  terrace,  known  to  Charterhouse  school- 
boys as  "  Cloisters,"  which  led  from  the  Mansion  to  the 

*  Now  in  the  Record  Office. 

t  I  conjecture  that  Sir  Henry  Neville's  rooms  were  in  the  part 
of  the  House  overlooking  the  garden  or  bowling-green9  once  the 
Great  Cloister,  now  occupied  by  the  Preacher. 


CLOISTERS  (THE  DUKE  OP  NORFOLK'S  ARCADE). 
1570-71. 


RIDOLFI  131 

sumptuous  Tennis  Court.  But  Norfolk  had  more  absorb- 
ing occupation  than  this  for  his  leisure.  Before  the 
spring  of  1571  was  far  advanced  he  was  deeply  involved 
in  the  plot  known  as  the  Ridolfi  Plot,  which  had  for  its 
object  the  dethronement  and  probably  the  death  of  Eliza- 
beth, and  her  replacement  by  Mary  Stuart  (when  married 
to  Norfolk).  Alva  was  to  send  troops  over  from  Holland, 
and  their  landing  was  to  be  the  signal  of  the  rising  of  some 
40,000  men  at  Norfolk's  bidding.  The  details  of  the  plot 
were  in  the  hands  of  Ross  and  Ridolfi.  The  latter  was 
a  Florentine  Banker,  settled  in  London,  who  acted  as  agent 
to  Pope  Pius  V,  and  to  Alva  and  Philip  II.  He  was  in 
his  own  right  a  Senator  of  Florence.  He  had  the  taste 
for  intrigue  which  was  almost  a  national  characteristic, 
but  he  had  no  other  qualification,  save  lack  of  scruple, 
for  his  task.  A  "  quarrelous  and  bitter  man,"  says  William 
Barker,  Norfolk's  secretary,  in  his  confession,  one  who 
was  subject  to  sudden  furious  outbursts.  A  man,  more- 
over, who  could  not  hold  his  tongue.  Once,  indeed, 
after  the  most  dangerous  of  all  his  interviews  with  Norfolk, 
in  the  short  walk  from  the  long  gallery  (south  wing  of 
Master's  House)  to  the  Porter's  Lodge,  he  had  given 
everything  away  to  Barker.  Alva,  at  his  first  interview 
with  him,  believed  him  to  be  an  English  spy,  since  no  one 
would  entrust  a  conspiracy  to  such  a  fool. 

It  was  Queen  Elizabeth's  good  fortune  to  have  in  William 
Cecil  a  man  who  was  more  than  a  match  for  ninety-nine 
out  of  every  hundred  conspirators  who  have  ever  tried 
to  shake  a  throne.  It  was  even  more  her  good  fortune 
that,  of  the  conspirators  who  tried  to  shake  her  throne, 
ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  were  inferior  in  quali- 
fication to  most  men  who  undertake  such  tasks. 

Here  was  Ridolfi,  a  hot-tempered,  blatant  fool.  Ross, 
a  man  of  high  ability,  but  outwitting  himself  by  inventing 
clever  lies  while  Cecil  had  the  truth  in  his  pocket.  Norfolk, 
with  little  or  nothing  of  the  stuff  in  him  of  which  good 
conspirators  are  made.  He  was  too  good,  carrying  always 
some  lingering  scruple  for  effective  treason — not  good  enough 
to  cast  the  treason  away.  He  had,  moreover,  an  unbounded 


132        THE  FOURTH  DUKE  OF  NORFOLK 

belief  in  his  own  fortune,  and,  worse  still  for  him,  a  greater 
belief  in  his  own  popularity  as  making  ultimate  catastrophe 
impossible.  A  strange  conspirator  this  who  leaves  a  ruinous 
letter  "  under  the  matte  "  of  his  study  for  a  whole  year, 
forgetting  it  was  there  because  he  had  "  given  orders 
that  it  should  be  burned."  And  these  three  men,  with  a 
plot  so  desperate  on  hand,  had  accomplices  great  and  small, 
enough  to  wreck  any  scheme  that  this  talkative  world 
has  ever  had  taste  of. 

First  of  all  there  were  privy  to  it  of  the  great  ones 
of  earth,  in  Scotland,  Holland,  Rome,  and  Spain,  Mary, 
Alva,  Pope  Pius  V,  Philip  II,  and  all  the  ears  and  tongues 
that  gathered  around  them,  together  with  some  scores 
of  English  malcontents — Ridolfi  put  it  down  at  two  score, 
of  whom  Norfolk  stood  as  40  in  the  cipher.  And  there 
were  the  Ambassadors  of  Spain  and  France  with  some 
of  their  servants,  and  at  least  half  a  dozen  of  the  Duke's 
own  retainers  at  Charterhouse,  let  alone  the  other  servants 
of  the  place,  all  of  whom  probably  could  have  told  a  tale 
had  it  been  really  needed. 

And  with  this  mixed  crew  of  Emperors  and  Popes  and 
Governors  and  Nobles  and  Secretaries  and  agents,  and 
"  raskall  fellows,"  as  the  Commissioner  Wylson  called  them, 
Norfolk  dreamed  that  he  could  carry  out  a  plot  which 
needed  secrecy  and  swiftness,  and  action  without  talk. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


AT  this  point  I  must  say  a  few  words  about  the  lesser 
actors  in  the  great  tragedy — men  who  lived  inside  Charter- 
house at  the  moment  and  whose  confessions,  obtained  in 
the  Tower,  are  to  those  who  know  the  buildings  of  Charter- 
house, full  of  a  picturesque  reality  which  enable  us  to  follow 
the  very  footsteps  of  the  men  who  made  the  history  of 
England  for  a  year  or  two,  as  they  walked  from  court  to 
court  and  room  to  room. 

Robert  Higford  was  a  confidential  secretary  to  Norfolk. 
We  know  nothing  of  his  earlier  life,  nor  much  about  him 
save  that  which  the  Confessions  tell  us.  After  his  master's 
death  he  was  also  put  upon  his  trial  and  condemned  to 
death.  I  am  unable  to  find  that  the  execution  was  carried 
out. 

William  Barker  was  a  second  secretary.  He  seems 
to  have  been  the  type  of  the  impecunious,  travelled 
"  pedant "  (in  the  old  sense  of  his  day).  He  was  educated  at 
Cambridge.  In  a  letter  which  he  wrote  for  mercy  to  Queen 
Elizabeth  he  speaks  of  having  received  benefits  from  her 
at  Cambridge,  which  looks  like  Emmanuel  College.  He 
travelled  in  Italy,  and  had  met  and  associated  at  Siena  with 
Sir  Thomas  Hoby,  the  translator  of  II  Cortigiano.  He  was 
himself  a  versifier,  and  in  an  age  when  most  educated  men 
could  do  something  decent  in  that  sort,  he  produced, 
when  at  Charterhouse,  some  villainous  stuff  which  the 
wily  Ross  had  asked  him  for  on  behalf  of  his  mistress, 
and  which  Mary,  with  no  less  wiliness,  in  a  letter  to  Barker, 
thanked  him  for,  declaring  that  she  liked  it  well.  Barker, 

133 


134  THE   RIDOLFI  PLOT 

in  his  confession,  with  some  pride  quoted  the  only  stanza 
he  could  remember.     We  shall,  perhaps,  require  no  more — 

"  Whan  thow  hast  felt  what  Fortune  ys 

And  fownd  her  firme  to  few, 
Thy  Trade  in  Truth  and  Fayth  parformyd 
Shall  clere  all  clowdy  skew." 

"  Some  more  verses  ther  were,"  adds  the  poet,  "  which 
I  do  not  remember.  He  [Ross]  at  his  being  with  the 
Quene  of  Scotts  shewid  her  the  Rime,  and  told  her  more 
of  me  ;  wherefore  she  wrote  a  Letter  of  Thanks  to  me  and 
the  Letter  maketh  Mention  of  Mr.  Banester  and  Cantrell." 

If  this  poor  vain  fellow  had  done  no  more  than  write 
this  stuff  it  had  been  well,  but  it  is  clear  that  Norfolk, 
with  his  usual  recklessness,  had  made  him  privy  to  much 
of  the  most  dangerous  import  while  he  trusted  him  but 
little.  "  I  would  sooner,"  said  the  Duke  at  his  trial,  "  have 
trusted  one  Banastre  than  fifteen  Barkers."  Of  his  fate 
we  have  no  record.  No  man's  testimony  did  so  much, 
perhaps,  to  bring  Norfolk  to  the  scaffold. 

The  Lawrence  Banastre  or  Banester,  of  whom  the  Duke 
spoke,  was  a  man  of  apparently  a  higher  type.  A  Justice 
of  the  Peace  for  his  county  (possibly  Shropshire),  and  so 
far  as  can  be  seen,  though  by  no  means  without  knowledge 
that  his  master  was  plotting,  yet  unacquainted  with  the 
details  of  his  plot.  Indeed,  he  claimed  to  know  so  little 
that  he  was  put  upon  the  rack,  which  Higford  and  Barker 
escaped,  but  with  no  better  result.  We  hear  of  him 
long  after  Norfolk's  death,  through  a  lease,  as  living  in 
a  house  in  the  square  adjacent  to  Charterhouse,  or  even 
forming  a  part  of  it. 

Of  the  other  servitors  we  hear  of  a  Scotsman,  John 
Syncleer,  alias  Gardner,  he  being  the  gardener  of  Howard 
House.  Taken  to  the  Tower  and  questioned,  he  produced  a 
tale  which  the  Commissioners  dismissed  in  their  report  as 
"  alehowse  bablyng  such  as  is  common  with  such  raskalls," 
and  after  a  season  in  Cold  Harbour  they  sent  him  back 
to  his  vegetables.  He  had  been  ten  years  in  the  Duke's 
service,  and  seventeen  years  later,  at  the  attainder  of  Philip 


THE   SERVANTS   OF   HOWARD   HOUSE     185 

Earl  of  Arundel,  he  was  still  caretaker  of  the  House  and 
Tennis  Court  *  at  Howard  House,  and  a  lease  of  the  year 
1580  made  him  tenant  of  a  narrow  strip  of  soil  on  the 
west  side  of  Charterhouse  Square,  where  he  set  up  a  bowling 
alley  to  the  annoyance  of  the  fashionable  inhabitants 
of  the  square,  by  reason  of  the  "  evill  disposed  "  persons 
who  resorted  thither.  On  one  occasion  Mr.  Syncleer's 
patrons  took  the  opportunity  of  the  owner's  absence  to 
loot  the  house  of  Sir  Christopher  Wray,  the  Lord  Chief 
Justice,  who  lived  in  the  square  close  to  the  obnoxious 
bowling  alley. 

Of  Lyggons,  "  the  Duke's  man  "  who  often  brought 
in  Ross,  we  find  nothing  in  shape  of  a  confession.  Nor 
from  Chaplain  Sewell,  who  had  bribed  Sir  Henry  Neville's 
footman,  Richard,  to  carry  letters  for  Norfolk;  nor  yet 
of  William  Cantrell,  mentioned  in  Queen  Mary's  letter 
to  Barker;  nor  yet  of  Sharpe,  "My  Lord's  Grome"  ;  nor  of 
Symminges,  "  the  Yoman  of  the  Cellar"  ;  nor  even  of  poor 
Nell  the  faithful.  The  treason  talked  in  the  Servants' 
Hall  was  classed,  doubtless,  with  the  "  aylehowse  bablyng  " 
of  the  gardener.  Sir  Nicholas  Lestrange,  Norfolk's  Cham- 
berlain, was  completely  absolved. 

I  shall  now  allow  the  Confessions  of  Norfolk  and  Ross, 
of  Banastre,  Barker,  and  Higford,  with  the  letters  of 
Ridolfi,  of  Alva,  and  of  Mary  Stuart  to  tell,  in  the  main, 
their  own  story  so  far  as  it  concerns  Howard  House. 

Ross,  in  his  Confessions  in  the  Tower,  gave  a  full  descrip- 
tion of  many  visits  to  Howard  House.  He  tells,  too,  of 
coming  to  dine  with  Lawrence  Banastre  at  his  Chamber 
in  the  Duke's  House.  He  tells  of  the  perpetual  messages 
which  passed  between  Norfolk  and  Mary,  and,  above  all, 
of  an  episode  in  the  Long  Gallery,  so  picturesque  that  I 
quote  it  in  full : — 

"  The  sayd  examinate  [Ross]  sayeth  that  the  Tuesday 
before  the  Duke  went  to  Kenninghale,  after  Supper  abowte 

*  The  Tennis  Court  became,  after  1611,  under  transformation 
the  house  used  for  Gownboys,  from  which  a  portion  cut  off  in  the 
early  nineteenth  century  became  the  Head  Master's  boarding  house, 
afterwards  "  Saunderites." 


136  THE   RIDOLFI   PLOT 

seven  of  the  clock  Lyggons  mett  hym  at  the  grett  Gate  of 
Haward  Howse  by  Apoyntemente  and  conducted  him  by 
the  Back-Court  of  the  Howse,  and  brought  hym  into 
the  Gallerye  next  to  the  Churcheyard  att  which  Tyme 
the  Duke  was  in  his  Bedde-Chamber,  as  Lyggons  sayed, 
with  the  Lord  Lumley,  and  soo  tarrynge  a  while  till  the 
Lord  Lumley  was  gone  the  Duke  came  into  the  sayd 
Gallery  *  to  this  examinate.  The  cause  of  this  Examinate's 
comynge  was  for  that  Robynson  had  brought  the  Duke 
a  Token  from  the  Quene  of  Scotts  which  as  he  remem- 
breth  was  a  Rynge  and  delyvered  the  same  without  any 
Letter  before  this  Examinate  knewe  thereof;  before 
which  Tyme  Bortycke  [Borthwick  one  of  Mary  Stuart's 
Gentlemen]  brought  a  Cushyn  wrought  with  the  Quene' s 
own  Armes  and  a  Devyse  upon  it,  with  this  sentence 
VIRESCIT  VULNERE  VIRTUS  and  a  Hand  with  a  Knyfe 
Cutting  down  the  Vines  as  they  use  in  the  Sprynge  Tyme  ; 
al  which  Work  was  made  by  the  Scottish  Quene' s  own 
Hand." 

The  Attorney-General  made  capital  of  this  "  Cushyn  " 
at  the  trial : — 

"  You  received,"  he  said,  "  in  Charterhouse  Letters, 
Messages,  and  Tokens  from  the  Scottish  Quene.  You 
received  from  her  a  Brooch  [this  curious  error  passed 
unnoticed]  with  a  hand  cutting  down  a  Vine  and  this 
Posie  '  Virescit  Vulnere  Virtus.'  But  my  Lord  do  Green 
Vines  grow  where  they  be  cut  ?  And  a  green  Vine  it  was." 

Banastre  [Sept.  30,  1571]  spoke  to  two  rings  set  with 
diamonds,  one  valued  at  20/.  the  other  at  [blank]  which 
Norfolk  sent  to  the  Queen  of  Scots.  He  it  was  too  who 
told  how,  by  Norfolk's  order,  he  had  left  open  "  the  dore 
of  his  logyng  which  hath  a  Bakdore  in  the  Duke's  House," 
so  that  the  Bishop  of  Ross  might  pass  through  without 
his  having  to  see  him. 

He  told,  moreover — and  here  again  we  have  one  of 
those  picturesque  touches  which  make  the  story  live 
again  for  us — how,  when  Norfolk  came  from  the  Tower, 
he,  Banastre,  handed  him  "  Seven  Handkerchefs  a  par 

*  This  is  the  Gallery  which  still  exists  ;  though  now  divided 
into  chambers  partly  in  the  Master's  Lodge  and  partly  in  the  Regis- 
trar's House. 


INTERVIEWS   IN   LONG   GALLERY          137 

of  writing  tables  and  a  little  tablett  of  gold  whereon  was 
sett  Queen  Mary's  portrat."  What  became  of  these 
pretty  love  tokens  ? 

William  Barker's  evidence  was  far  more  damaging. 
He  told  (Oct.  10,  1571)  how  he  had  twice  admitted 
Ridolfi  to  interviews  in  the  Long  Gallery — Norfolk  stoutly 
asserted  there  had  been  but  one.  The  first  time,  he 
says,  was  about  eight  of  the  clock  one  evening  in  Lent 
last,  when  he  "  did  bringe  Ridolphi  Secretlye  to  the 
Duke  where  Ridolphi  did  talke  with  the  Duke  in  his 
Gallarye  half  an  hower  and  more."  It  was  on  this  occasion 
that  the  short  walk  from  Gallery  to  Porter's  Gate  sufficed 
to  create  one  more  witness  to  the  Treason.  Barker  is 
precise  in  his  description  : — 

"  The  first  Tyme  I  brought  him  up  on  the  Back  Side 
by  the  long  Workhouse  at  the  furder  end  of  the 
Lavendry  Cort.  So  up  a  new  Payer  of  Stayers  that  goeth 
up  to  the  old  wardrobe  and  so  thoroughe  the  Chamber 
where  my  Lady  Lestrange  [wife  of  Norfolk's  Chamberlain] 
used  to  dine  and  suppe.  The  second  Tyme  I  brought 
him  up  at  the  Stayers  of  the  entry  that  goeth  to  Sir  Henry 
Neville's  Chamber  and  down  agayne  that  way." 

We  can  identify  the  route  tolerably  well.  He  was 
taken  in  at  the  door  of  the  Slype,  now  the  Manciples' 
passage  which  adjoins  the  long  workhouse  (now  divided 
up  into  smaller  workshops)  in  the  west  wing  of  Washhouse 
Court.  He  was  led,  it  must  seem,  across  the  Master's 
Court  to  the  corner  where  a  door  in  the  north  wing  opened 
on  the  Great  Staircase,  newly  built.  For  there  is  no 
other  staircase  to  which  the  term  "  payer  of  stayers," 
used  literally  in  that  day,  could  apply.  The  old  ward- 
robe was,  perhaps,  a  cloak  room  at  or  near  the  lobby  off 
the  Great  Staircase  to  the  right,  which  gives  access  to  the 
upper  rooms  of  the  Preacher's  House  and  of  the  Master's 
Lodge.  It  was  through  the  latter  (the  east  wing)  that 
Ridolfi  must  have  been  led  to  meet  the  Duke,  who  came 
from  his  Bed  Chamber  (to-day  the  Registrar's  Drawing- 
room)  into  the  Long  Gallery  in  the  south  wing.  We  are 


138  THE  RIDOLFI  PLOT 

told  in  another  Confession  how  Barker  withdrew  into  a 
window  while  Ridolfi  talked  with  the  Duke. 

With  regard  to  the  second  interview,  for  which  Barker 
says  he  let  Ridolfi  in  by  the  Stayers  of  the  entry  to  Sir 
Henry  Neville's  Chamber,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that, 
as  I  have  already  said,  Sir  Henry  Neville  had  his  quarters 
in  what  is  now  the  Preacher's  House,  and  that  the  very 
interesting  Staircase  which  leads  down  to  what  was  formerly 
the  Garden  or  Bowling-green  of  Howard  House  (once 
the  Great  Cloister)  was  that  which  is  here  mentioned  by 
Barker. 

Norfolk's  own  confession  corroborates  the  main  fact 
of  one  interview  with  Ridolfi,  while  it  denies  the  second. 
Whether  the  result  came  from  one  interview  or  two,  its 
nature  is  undoubted.  Norfolk  entered  freely  into  the 
plan  by  which  he  was  to  raise  a  force  of  men  in  the  Eastern 
Counties  to  co-operate  with  a  landing  of  10,000  of  Alva's 
troops  at  Harwich.  The  Queen  of  Scots  was  to  take  the 
place  of  Elizabeth  on  the  English  throne. 

Norfolk  seems  to  have  held  the  fatuous  idea  that  so 
long  as  he  did  not  actually  sign  any  of  these  compromising 
documents  he  was  safe,  no  matter  what  amount  of  approval 
he  might  have  bestowed  upon  them  by  word  of  mouth. 
That  night,  however,  Ridolfi  went  away  and  forthwith 
wrote  out  three  similar  reports  *  of  the  Duke's  complete 
assent  to  the  scheme,  for  Alva,  Philip,  and  Pius  V,  and  in 
a  day  or  two  had  started  for  the  Netherlands,  where  he 
handed  Alva  his  report. 

As  we  have  said,  Alva  thought  him  a  babbler  and  said 
so,  but  he  none  the  less  approved  the  plan  and  grasped  the 
detail  to  its  full  value.  To  Philip  he  wrote  quite  clearly  : — 

"  Your  Majesty  understands.  The  Queen  being  dead — 
naturally  or  otherwise — dead  or  else  a  prisoner,  there  will 
be  an  opportunity  which  we  must  not  allow  to  escape. 
The  first  step  must  not  be  taken  by  us  ...  but  we  may 
tell  the  Duke  that  those  Conditions  being  first  fulfilled 
he  shall  have  what  he  wants." 

*  Two  of  these  letters  exist:  one  in  Italian  in  the  Vatican,  the 
other  in  Spanish,  lately  at  Simancas,  but  now  removed  to  the  National 
Archives  of  Madrid. 


THE   RIDOLFI   PLOT  139 

Apparently  anxious  to  justify  Alva's  opinion  of  him 
as  a  fool,  Ridolfi  at  once  wrote  in  cipher  three  similar 
letters  to  Ross,  Norfolk,  and  Lumley,  enclosing  all  three 
in  one  packet  to  Ross  with  the  key  of  the  cipher  enclosed. 
Then  he  set  forth  with  his  other  copy  of  the  report  for 
Pius  V,  and  reaching  Rome  in  May,  passed  thence  in  June 
to  Madrid,  where  Philip  at  once  summoned  a  Cabinet 
Council  which  cheerfully  decided  on  the  murder  of  Elizabeth, 
and  appointed  Chapin  Vitelli,  at  his  own  request,  to  do 
the  deed. 

Meanwhile  Ridolfi's  packet  to  Ross  had  gone  on  its 
way  by  the  hand  of  Charles  Bailly,  the  unhappy  creature 
whose  piteous  lament  is  still  to  be  seen  carved  on  the  walls 
of  the  Tower.  He  fell  into  the  hands  of  Cecil's  spies. 
His  precious  packet  was  opened  by  Lord  Cobham,  who, 
won  over  by  his  brother,  sent  merely  the  bag  with  seditious 
books  in  it  to  Cecil  and  passed  the  cipher  letters  on  to  Ross. 
The  latter  substituted  other  letters  in  the  same  cipher  of 
no  very  dangerous  hue,  and  passed  them  on.  But  Bailly 
under  the  rack,  and  by  means  of  a  clever  trick,  was  presently 
induced  to  tell  the  secret  of  the  true  contents  of  the  letter. 
Once  more  Cecil,  that  "  fox  of  infinite  cunning  "  as  Guerau 
called  him,  knew  more  than  any  single  conspirator  of  them 
all,  and  Norfolk  was  in  his  net. 

But  the  Ridolfi  business  was  not  all.  The  French 
Ambassador  and  the  Spanish,  in  London,  while  seeking 
in  their  master's  interest  to  undermine  each  other,  sought 
also  to  undermine  Elizabeth. 

The  French  Ambassador,  de  La  Mothe  Fenelon,  lived 
in  Charterhouse  Square.  One  day  he  received  from  Mary's 
supporters  in  France  a  sum  of  300  French  gold  crowns 
and  300  English  angels.  He  sent  them  through  to  Norfolk 
in  Charterhouse.  His  servant  delivered  the  bag  to  Barker 
"  in  the  chapel  "  (an  interesting  fact  which  shows  that 
the  chapel,  if  ever  used  as  a  Banquet  Hall,*  had  been 
so  only  for  a  time),  and  the  latter  carried  them  through 
to  Higford.  Norfolk,  with  his  usual  neglect  of  detail, 
bade  him  despatch  the  bag  to  his  agent  (Banastre),  then  in 

*  See  Maurice  Chauncy's  account. 


140  THE  RIDOLFI  PLOT 

Shropshire,  for  conveyance  to  Lord  Herries,  on  behalf 
of  Mary,  and  enclosed  letters  therewith  in  cipher.  With 
incredible  carelessness  Higford  entrusted  the  bag  to  a 
merchant  called  Brown,  travelling  to  Shrewsbury,  saying  that 
it  was  fifty  pounds  in  silver  for  the  payment  of  his  Lord's 
tenants.  Brown,  having  some  knowledge  of  the  weight 
of  coins,  thought  it  heavy — opened  it,  found  the  letters, 
and  returned  to  Cecil,  who  at  once  summoned  Robert 
Higford  to  decipher  the  letters.  Higford  prevaricated 
awhile,  then,  under  fear  of  the  rack,  declared  that  the 
alphabet  to  the  cipher  "  was  left  under  the  matte  hard 
by  the  wyndowes  syde  in  the  entrye  towards  my  Lord's 
Bed  Chamber  wheare  the  Mappe  of  England  doth  hang 
whereof  I  made  my  Lord  pryvie."  *  Meanwhile,  from 
memory,  he  deciphered  the  letters  and  once  more  Norfolk's 
guilt  was  proved. 

But  when  the  messengers  in  hot  haste  reached  Charter- 
house and  made  search  beneath  the  "  matte,"  the  alphabet 
had  been  "  gotten  away."  But  they  found  instead  a 
letter  to  Norfolk  from  Queen  Mary — which  Norfolk  declared 
had  lain  there  near  upon  a  year.  "  I  bid,"  said  Norfolk 
at  his  trial,  "  that  letter  should  be  burned."  "  God  would 
not  have  it  so,"  was  the  Attorney-General's  reply. 

Norfolk,  not  knowing  what  had  happened,  repeated  his 
tale  of  the  fifty  pounds  for  his  tenants  to  the  Commissioners, 
Sir  Thomas  Smith  and  Doctor  Wilson,  who  came  to  Charter- 
house to  examine  him.  Cecil,  on  learning  this,  at  once 
went  to  Elizabeth,  who  ordered  Norfolk  to  the  Tower. 

Sir  Ralph  Sadler,  who  carried  out  the  order,  wrote  on 
Sept.  7,  1571,  to  Elizabeth  of  his  action  on  the  previous 
day,  telling  how  he  came  to  the  Duke  about  three  of  the 
afternoon  and 

"  so  having  prepared  a  Fotecloth  Nag  for  him,  I  Sir  Rauf 
Sadler,  on  the  one  side  and  Sir  Thomas  Smith  on  the  other 

*  We  can  identify  this  spot  in  the  Duke's  privie  chamber  or 
study  to  within  a  few  feet.  The  room,  sadly  shorn  of  all  traces 
of  antiquity,  is  still  in  existence  on  the  first  floor  at  the  north  end 
of  the  west  wing  of  the  Master's  Court.  The  text  of  the  letter  from 
Queen  Mary  will  be  found  in  Wright's  History  of  Scotland.  Probably 
the  original  exists,  but  I  am  unable  to  trace  it. 


NORFOLK'S   ARREST   AND   TRIAL  141 

side  and  I  Doctor  Wilson  coming  immediately  after  with 
only  our  servants  and  friends  accompanied  he  was  betwixt 
four  and  five  of  the  Clock  quietly  brought  into  the  Tower 
without  eny  Truble  save  a  Nomber  of  idle  raskall  People, 
Women,  Men,  Boyes  and  Girles  runnyng  about  him, 
as  the  Manner  is,  gasyng  at  him." 

And  so  in  this  sorry  procession  Thomas  Howard  passed 
out  of  the  Gatehouse  of  Howard  House  for  the  last  time. 

The  missing  key  to  the  cipher  was  yet  to  find.  Norfolk 
himself  gave  the  clue.  Sir  Thomas  Smyth  writes  thus 
to  Burghley  on  Sept.  21,  1751  : — 

"  With  talking  with  the  Duke  heretofor  and  charging 
him  that  he  had  the  Cifer  which  we  missed  and  which 
should  lie  under  the  Matte,  he  cast  out  a  word  and  said 
that  Higforth's  memory  might  faile ;  yt  had  ben,  and 
might  lie  bewixte  tiles.  We  called  Higforth  before  us. 
At  the  first  he  said  that  was  before  the  House  was  full 
buylded,  now  it  was  ceeled  there,  and  toke  it  surely  to  be 
under  the  Matte.  Yet  after  a  night  he  remembered 
himself  but  he  could  not  so  demonstrate  it  that  any  man 
might  fyend  it.  If  he  went  by  hymself  he  doubted  not 
to  fyend  it  if  it  were  there.  Whereupon  I,  Dr  Wilson, 
went  this  day  with  hym  and  one  of  the  Tower  his  keper 
to  Haward  House  and  founde  it  indede  betwixt  two  tiles 
in  the  Roof  so  hid  as  it  had  not  bene  possible  to  have  founde 
it  otherwise  than  by  unrypping  all  the  Tiles  except  one  had 
been  well  acquainte  with  the  Place." 

The  rest  is  soon  told.  On  Jan.  16,  Westminster  Hall 
was  prepared  with  all  the  pomp  and  splendour  which  was 
fit  to  usher  in  the  trial  of  the  premier  Peer  of  England. 
Other  satisfaction  than  that  Norfolk  could  have  hardly 
found  in  the  manner  of  his  trial.  Utterly  repugnant  in 
its  methods  to  our  later  views  of  justice,  it  was  yet  in  its 
day  neither  better  nor  worse  than  that  which  was  measured 
out  to  men  on  trial  of  life  and  death.  Norfolk  applied  to 
be  heard  by  counsel.  The  point  of  law  was  referred  to 
the  Chief  Justice  Sir  James  Dyer  (Norfolk's  neighbour 
in  Charterhouse  Square).  Dyer  decided  that  by  the  law 


142  THE  RIDOLFI  PLOT 

of  England  a  prisoner  accused  of  treason  could  not  be  heard 
by  counsel.  What  purports  to  be  a  verbal  record  of  the 
trial  is  extant.*  The  Attorney  of  the  Wards  made  rhetori- 
cal statements  to  the  peers  rather  than  examined,  and  brow- 
beat the  prisoner  in  the  manner  of  that  day.  Only  one 
witness  was  produced  in  court.  The  Confessions  of 
Archbishop  Ross,  Bailly,  Higford,  Banastre,  and  Barber 
were  read  in  court,  but  no  cross-examination — the  merest 
amateur  can  see  where  such  was  needed — was  possible. 
It  is  true,  as  we  know  now,  that  Cecil  had  evidence  enough 
behind  the  scenes  to  have  convicted  ten  times  over.  And 
doubtless  the  consciousness  of  this  paralysed  the  Duke's 
defence.  The  trial  lasted  all  day,  and  as  the  Hall  darkened 
the  Lords  gave  in  their  verdict  of  guilty. 

Four  weeks  or  so  later  the  scaffold  was  built  one  day 
on  Tower  Hill  ready  for  its  work  next  morning.  But 
Elizabeth  withdrew  the  warrant  which  she  had  signed, 
and  next  day,  Feb.  11,  the  crowd  who  had  gathered  to  see 
Norfolk  die,  had  to  be  content  with  two  victims  of  small 
interest.  All  that  spring  Cecil  brought  pressure  to  bear 
in  vain,  but  at  last  a  joint  petition  of  Lords  and  Commons 
forced  the  reluctant  Queen  once  more  to  sign  the  death 
warrant.  In  Burghley's  diary,  under  June  2,  occurs  this 
entry  :  "  The  Duke  of  Norfolk  suffred."  On  the  scaffold 
he  declared  to  the  people  that  he  had  always  been  a 
Protestant  since  he  had  known  what  religion  meant.  It 
was  a  point  on  which  men  might  well  have  doubted.  And 
so  passed  out  of  sight  the  fourth  Duke  of  Norfolk,  and  a 
notable  chapter  in  the  History  of  Charterhouse,  which  for 
the  time  had  become  the  History  of  England  itself,  was 
closed. 

*  The  Trial  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk.     Joseph  Brown,  1709. 

t  The  Duke  was  buried,  with  more  honour  than  was  often  given 
to  the  victims  of  the  axe,  in  St.  Peter's  Chapel  of  the  Tower,  where 
his  two  cousins,  Anne  Boleyn  and  Katharine  Howard,  already  lay. 
In  that  same  chapel  no  less  than  three  owners  of  Charterhouse  found 
rest,  John  Dudley  Earl  of  Northumberland,  Thomas  Howard,  and 
his  son  Philip  Earl  of  Arundel. 


CHAPTER  XV 

HOWARD    HOUSE   UNDER   PHILIP    EARL   OF   ARUNDEL 

PHILIP  HOWARD  was  the  eldest  son  of  Thomas  Howard, 
fourth  Duke  of  Norfolk  by  his  first  wife,  the  Lady  Mary  Fitz- 
alan,  daughter  of  Henry  Fitzalan,  twelfth  Earl  of  Arundel. 
He  was  born  at  Arundel  House,*  his  grandfather's  Mansion 
in  the  Strand,  on  June  28,  1557,  and  his  mother,  the  last 
of  the  Fitzalans,  dying  less  than  two  months  after  his 
birth,  he  seems  to  have  remained  in  Arundel  House,  and 
to  have  been  there  brought  up,  as  presently  were  his  step- 
brothers, Thomas  and  William  (the  "  Belted  Will "  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott).  Their  country  home  was  probably  Kenning- 
hall.  Philip  II  stood  godfather  to  Philip  Howard,  for 
whom  presently  a  tutor  was  found  in  one  Martin  Gregory 
of  St.  John's  Oxford,  a  man  of  strong  Romanist  tendencies, 
who  later  crossed  over  to  Douai  and  died  there. 

When  Philip  was  a  few  months  under  twelve  he  was 
betrothed  to  Anne  Dacre,  also  twelve  years  old,  who  was 
Norfolk's  ward,  the  daughter  of  his  third  wife  Elizabeth 
Lady  Dacre.  The  pair  were  formally  married — the  MS.f 
calls  it  "  married  a  second  time  " — two  years  later  when 
each  was  fourteen.  This  match  at  first  was  nothing 
happier  than  most  of  such  miserable  arrangements  common 
in  that  day.  Philip  Howard  was  about  fifteen  years  old 

*  Arundel  House,  of  which  all  trace  has  disappeared,  stood 
over  several  acres  of  ground  slightly  to  the  west  of  a  line  drawn 
from  St.  Clement  Danes  (where  Mary  Fitzalan  was  buried)  to  the 
river.  The  name  is  preserved  in  Arundel  Street. 

t  A  MS.  at  Arundel,  which  was  published  by  the  thirteenth  Duke 
of  Norfolk,  is  my  authority  for  this  and  several  other  statements  con- 
cerning the  life  of  Philip  Howard.  It  is  thought  to  have  been  written 
by  the  Confessor  of  Anne  (Dacre),  Philip's  wife. 

143 


144  PHILIP  EARL  OF  ARUNDEL 

at  his  father's  execution,  and  his  uncle,  Lord  William 
Howard,  took  charge  of  him  and  of  his  stepbrothers.  He 
was  sent  to  Cambridge,  to  St.  John's,  where,  not  being 
a  youth  of  strong  character,  he  is  said  by  his  biographer 
to  have  been  idle  and  dissipated.  From  Cambridge,  there- 
fore, he  brought  back  little  that  was  useful,  unless  the 
degree  of  M.A.  given  "  without  the  usual  exercises  "  can 
be  so  counted,  and  once  more  in  London  he  at  once  began 
to  live  the  life  of  the  courtier  about  town.  He  had  in- 
herited from  his  father,  Norfolk,  and  his  grandfather, 
Surrey,  a  full  share  of  their  love  of  magnificence.  The 
estates  of  Norfolk  had  descended  to  him  by  an  entail, 
and  though  condemnation  for  treason  cancelled  all  entail 
and  the  estates  were  forfeit  to  the  Crown,  Elizabeth  seems 
to  have  waived  that  claim,  though  she  did  not  allow  him 
to  assume  the  title  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk.  He  was,  for 
the  present,  merely  Earl  of  Surrey  by  courtesy.  We  find 
him,  however,  in  the  year  1578,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
one,  entertaining  the  Queen  at  Kenninghall  in  Norfolk, 
and  a  little  later,  Elizabeth  being  on  a  progress  in  those 
parts,  he  entertained  her  at  his  Palace  at  Norwich,  keeping 
open  house  to  all  the  nobles  and  gentlefolk  of  the  county 
in  fashion  so  sumptuous  that  it  is  said  to  have  left  him 
seriously  in  debt. 

All  this  time  he  was  neglecting  his  young  wife  Anne,  who 
lived  alone  in  the  country  while  he  kept  court  at  Arundel 
House.  The  Arundel  MS.  tells  us  that  when  she  came 
to  town  she  had  lodgings  in  Charterhouse.  But  in  1580, 
the  Earl  of  Arundel  died  and  Philip  Howard  succeeded 
to  his  title  and  to  his  estates.  He  was,  in  1581,  "  restored 
in  blood,"  but  still  without  Norfolk's  titles,  and  at  the 
same  time  he  and  his  wife  came  together  and  lived  at 
Arundel  House.  She  was  a  woman  of  strong  character 
and  religious  feeling,  and  her  influence  with  her  husband 
became  great.  In  1582  she  joined  the  Roman  Church, 
making  no  secret  of  it.  Elizabeth  in  wrath  sent  her  down 
to  the  charge  of  Sir  Thomas  Shirley  at  Wiston  in  Sussex 
for  a  year.  She  was  kindly  treated,  but  strictly  guarded, 
and  there  she  gave  birth  to  her  only  daughter.  Meanwhile, 


PHILIP   EARL    OF   ARUNDEL  145 

strange  rumours  were  flying  about  London  with  reference 
to  Philip  Howard.  In  1583,  Elizabeth  announced  her 
intention  of  visiting  him  at  Arundel  House,*  it  is  easy  to 
guess  why.  The  self-invited  guest  liked  well  of  her  enter- 
tainment, we  are  told,  but  perhaps  saw  there  things  which 
confirmed  her  suspicions.  A  month  or  so  later  Arundel 
and  his  stepbrother,  William  Howard,  had  orders  to  con- 
sider themselves  prisoners  in  Arundel  House.  This  con- 
finement lasted,  Arundel  says  in  a  letter  to  the  Queen, 
for  fifteen  weeks,  during  which  he  and  his  officials  were 
several  times  severely  questioned.  In  1584,  Arundel 
was  secretly  received  into  the  Roman  Church  by  Father 
William  Weston,  but  remained  about  the  person  of  Eliza- 
beth until  in  April,  1585,  he  resolved  to  fly  the  country, 
and  had  actually  sailed  on  a  vessel  from  Littlehampton 
when  he  was  overtaken  and  arrested.  Brought  before  the 
Star  Chamber  he  was  charged  with  that  offence,  with 
communicating  with  Mary  Stuart,  and  with  seeking  to 
assume  the  Norfolk  title.  No  trial  followed,  but  he 
was  committed  to  the  Tower  and  fined  £10,000.  Once 
only  did  he  leave  it  in  all  the  rest  of  his  life.  In  1588, 
when  the  Spanish  Armada  was  coming  up  the  Channel, 
he  and  one  or  two  others  in  the  Tower  met  in  his  prison  in 
the  Beauchamp  Tower  and  there  heard  mass,  which  was 
followed  by  twenty-four  hours  of  intercession.  William 
Bennett,  the  priest  who  had  celebrated,  under  fear  of  torture 
confessed  that  the  mass  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  the  prayers 
which  followed  had  been  for  the  success  of  the  Spaniards. 
Arundel  wholly  denied  this,  explaining  that  there  was  a 
rumour  in  London  that  all  Romanists  were  to  be  massacred. 
The  mass,  he  said,  was  for  his  own  safety  and  for  that  of 
his  fellows.  Bennett,  in  a  letter  to  Arundel  full  of  remorse- 
ful apology,  declared  that  he  had  merely  confessed  what- 
ever he  thought  would  please  best ;  but  at  the  later  trial 
he  was  produced  and  did  not  withdraw  his  confession. 
On  April  14,  1589,  Arundel,  splendidly  attired,  and  bearing 

*  Mr.  Taylor  makes  this  a  visit  to  Charterhouse.  The  Arundel 
MS.  is,  however,  quite  clear  on  the  point.  And  there  is  no  evidence 
that  Arundel  himself  ever  lived  in  Charterhouse. 


146  PHILIP  EARL  OF  ARUNDEL 

himself  proudly  to  the  annoyance  of  his  judges,  it  is  said, 
appeared  in  Westminster  Hall  under  an  act  of  attainder 
and  was  condemned  to  death — the  fourth  in  direct  line  from 
and  including  the  third  Duke  of  Norfolk  in  Henry  VIII's 
reign  who  had  lain  under  such  sentence,  his  father  and 
grandfather  having  actually  suffered  death.*  He  was 
taken  back  to  his  prison  in  the  Beauchamp  Tower,  but  was 
never  led  forth  to  Tower  Hill.  His  imprisonment,  however, 
was  made  a  very  sad  one.  Elizabeth  hated  him.  Perhaps 
she  remembered  how  his  grandfather  Arundel  had  once 
told  her  to  her  face  that  if  she  tried  to  govern  England 
with  her  caprices  the  nobility  would  have  to  interfere. 
Perhaps  the  letter  which  Philip  Howard  himself  had  written 
on  the  eve  of  his  flight  from  Littlehampton  rankled  in 
her  mind.  He  had  told  her,  amongst  many  other  things, 
with  no  small  indiscretion,  for  he  could  certainly  not  have 
been  aware  of  the  truth,  that  his  father  had  died  innocent 
of  all  disloyal  mind,  and  that  even  his  worst  enemies  now 
admitted  it.  But  whatever  the  cause,  he  was  treated 
with  harshness  in  the  Tower.  His  only  son  was  born 
in  1586,  soon  after  his  committal,  but  he  was  allowed  to 
see  neither  wife  nor  child.  And  when  in  1595  death  drew 
near  and  he  asked  to  say  farewell  to  wife  and  children,  even 
at  that  moment  it  was  denied  him  unless  he  would  con- 
sent to  go  to  church.  As  he  lay  dying  he  uttered  a  digni- 
fied and  pathetic  appeal  to  the  Lieutenant  of  the  Tower, 
Sir  Michel  Blount :  "  You  must  think,  Mr.  Lieutenant,  that 
when  a  prisoner  comes  hither  to  this  Tower  that  he  bringeth 
sorrow  with  him.  On  them  do  not  add  affliction  to 
affliction."  He  died  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven,  and  was 
buried  near  his  unhappy  kinsfolk  and  predecessors  in  mis- 
fortune in  the  Chapel  of  St.  Peter's  of  the  Tower,  but 
in  1624  was  moved  thence  to  the  Chancel  of  the  Parish 
Church  of  Arundel. 

The  tenure  by  which  he  had  held  Howard  House  was, 
as  I  have  said,  evidently  one  of  permission,  the  Queen 

K  Three  owners  of  Charterhouse  as  a  mansion,  Northumberland, 
Norfolk,  Arundel,  were  sentenced  to  death. 


THE    PORTUGUESE   AMBASSADOR          147 

not  insisting  on  the  forfeiture  of  the  estates,  which  de- 
scended to  him  by  entail.  I  can,  however,  find  no  evidence 
that  he  ever  himself  used  it  as  his  Town  House.  During 
the  whole  of  his  tenure,  which  lasted  from  1572  to  his  own 
attainder,  1589,  we  learn  from  the  report  of  the  jury 
appointed  to  return  a  valuation  of  Charterhouse  on  its 
forfeiture  to  the  Crown,  that  John  Sincleere,  the  shrewd 
Scotch  gardener  of  Howard  House,  whose  feigned  stupidity 
had  once  served  him  so  well  in  the  Tower,  was  caretaker 
of  the  mansion.  The  deed  by  which  he  was  appointed 
dates  from  the  time  of  Norfolk  and  throws  an  interesting 
side  light  on  a  critical  moment  of  the  Duke's  affairs.  It 
is  dated  August  12,  1569.*  That  was  a  week  or  two  only 
before  Norfolk's  last  interview  with  Elizabeth,  and  six 
weeks  before  his  fatal  flight  from  the  Court.  It  is  easy 
to  see  that  in  taking  the  strange  step  of  appointing  a 
legalised  custodian  of  Howard  House  he  did  so  under  a 
strong  sense  of  the  events  which  were  impending,  and 
which  might — as  indeed  they  did — make  him  a  stranger  to 
Howard  House  for  many  a  long  day.  The  deed  appointing 
Sincleere  as  custodian  could  not,  of  course,  be  thought 
to  have  any  effect  at  all  in  staving  off  the  forfeiture  as  has 
been  suggested. 

Philip  Howard  seems  to  have  used  Ai'undel  House, 
as  we  have  said,  in  the  life  of  his  grandfather  as  his  place 
of  resort  in  London.  And  Charterhouse  was  let  from 
1573  for  some  years  onwards  to  the  Portuguese  Ambassador. 
It  comes  before  us  from  a  most  picturesque  episode  in  1576, 
which  once  more  gives  local  details  of  the  Master's 
Lodge.  The  Portuguese  Ambassador  was  in  the  habit 
of  having  mass  celebrated  there,  and  it  came  to  be  known 
that  Englishmen  resorted  to  it.  One  Sunday  at  11  o'clock 
the  Recorder  of  London  with  Sheriff  Kimpton  and  Sheriff 
Barnes  appeared  with  a  handful  of  followers  before  the 
Porter's  Lodge.  The  Porter,  "  being  a  Portugal,  a  testy 
little  wretch,"  says  the  Recorder,  showed  fight  and  shut 
the  Recorder's  leg,  to  his  great  pain,  in  the  Great  Gates, 

*  The  actual  deed  is  not  extant  so  far  as  I  know.  But  it  is 
quoted  as  bearing  date  August  12,  1569. 


148  PHILIP  EARL  OF  ARUNDEL 

whence  it  was  rescued  by  Mr.  Sheriff  Kimpton.  The 
party  forced  its  way  in  and,  crossing  the  little  triangular 
Entrance  Court,  went  into  the  entrance  "  Hal,"  *  all  doors 
being  open,  and  up  the  stairs.  At  the  stair-head  there 
was  a  Long  Gallery  (now  divided  off  into  separate  rooms 
in  the  Master's  and  Registrar's  Houses)  that,  in  length, 
stood  east  and  west.  In  the  same  Gallery  all  the  mass- 
hearers  were  standing,  for  the  priest  was  at  the  gospel, 
and  the  altar  candles  were  lighted,  as  the  old  manner  was. 
The  presence  of  the  intruders  soon  became  known,  and 
thereupon  ensued  a  scene  so  wild  that  the  Spanish  Am- 
bassador who  was  present  (this  probably  means  Antonio 
de  Guarras,  presently  to  be  mentioned)  afterwards  made 
furious  protest  to  the  Queen  upon  the  breach  of  an  Ambassa- 
dor's privilege.  The  Queen,  says  Strype,  "  was  so  com- 
plaisant "  as  to  order  the  Recorder  to  be  committed. 

The  Portuguese  Ambassador,  called  the  Seigneur 
Giraldo  or  Giraldi,  was  still  not  satisfied.  A  special 
messenger  with  apologies  was  sent  down  to  him  on  board 
his  ship,  he,  as  it  happened,  being  on  the  eve  of  a  visit  to 
his  home.  And  meanwhile  the  Privy  Council  ordered 
an  inquiry  to  which  the  Recorder  should  furnish  a  full 
account.  It  is  from  his  very  minute  report  that  the 
following  description  is  framed.  The  Recorder  having 
entered  the  Long  Gallery  with  his  party,  the  mass-hearers 
all  turn  round.  He  summons  all  Englishmen  to  come  out. 
All  the  strangers  (foreigners)  make  a  rush  at  him,  some 
with  rapiers  drawn,  some  with  daggers.  Two  bailiff's 
"  errants  "  of  Middlesex  draw  their  swords,  which  at  Mr. 
Recorder's  order  are  at  once  sheathed.  There  is  a  general 
melde,  "  and  then  Mr.  Sheriff  Kimpton  with  all  the  Mass- 
hearers  with  Seigneur  Giraldie's  Wife  and  her  Maids  were 
all  in  a  Heap,  forty  persons  at  once  speaking  in  several 
languages." 

*  This  Hal  must  have  been  a  lobby,  probably  on  the  west  of 
the  portal  where  the  Registrar's  office  now  is,  since  the  stair  by  which 
they  ascended  (an  outside  stair  with,  doubtless,  entrance  from  both 
floors  internally,  of  which  a  fragment  remains)  opened  on  to  the 
end  of  the  Long  Gallery.  There  was  another  outside  staircase  opening 
nearer  the  middle.  The  Long  Gallery  has  already  figured  in  the  visits 
of  Ross  and  Ridolfi. 


SCENE    IN   THE   LONG   GALLERY          149 

From  this  polyglot  mass  the  gallant  Recorder  extricates 
the  Ambassador's  wife,  and  kissing  his  hand,  in  what, 
presumably,  he  took  to  be  the  Spanish  manner,  he  led  her 
by  the  hand  out  of  the  press  to  her  chamber  door,  and  there 
makes  "  a  most  humble  Cursey  unto  her."  And  then 
performing  the  same  gallant  service  to  the  gentlewomen, 
he  returns  to  the  Long  Gallery  and  with  his  colleagues 
begins  to  question,  first  allowing  the  men  of  the  house- 
hold to  depart,  which  they  do,  using  such  "  lewd  and 
contumelious  words  "  that  Mr.  Recorder  is  glad  his  men 
do  not  understand  them. 

The  strangers  not  of  the  household  are  less  amenable 
still,  till  Mr.  Recorder  says,  "  Very  well,  then,  they  must  all 
go  to  prison."  Whereon,  cap  in  hand,  they  become 
submissive  and  are  dismissed,  the  Englishmen  alone  being 
arrested.  At  this  moment  a  mild  practical  joke  is  played 
on  the  energetic  Mr.  Kimpton.  The  "  Mass  sayer  "  had 
stood  quietly  at  the  north  end  of  the  altar  during  all  this 
scene.  The  altar  must  have  been  at  the  east  end  of  the 
gallery  where  the  landing  of  the  staircase  (a  modern 
insertion)  now  is.  Some  one  whispers  to  Kimpton  that  if 
the  door  at  the  side  (this  can  only  be  the  door  opening  into 
the  present  "  small  drawing-room  ")  be  opened  he  will 
find  a  number  of  "  mass  mongers  "  inside.  The  priest 
smilingly  produces  the  keys ;  the  door  is  opened ;  the 
eager  sheriff  enters,  to  find  an  empty  room. 

Defeated  on  this  side  issue,  but  victorious  at  all  the  other 
points,  the  party  think  it  time  to  go.  But  first  they  are 
led  up  to  see  "  how  trim  the  altar  is,"  by  Don  Antonio  de 
Guarras,  who  had  been  the  most  boisterous  of  their  op- 
ponents. This  de  Guarras  was  a  notable  man,  the  envoy 
to  London  of  the  Duke  of  Alva — probably  he  is  "  the  Spanish 
Ambassador "  described  in  the  Recorder's  report.  He 
was  a  noted  intriguer,  as  his  surviving  letters  to  Alva 
and  Philip  show,  and  he  took  little  from  his  object  lesson 
this  day  in  Burghley's  methods  of  dealing  with  Ambassadors 
seeing  that  only  a  year  later  he  found  himself  in  the  Tower, 
having  been  found  writing  letters  of  conspiracy  to  Mary 
Stuart.  To-day,  however,  in  spite  of  the  provocation 


150  PHILIP  EARL  OF  ARUNDEL 

received,  his  Spanish  courtesy  is  with  him  and  he  conducts 
the  Recorder  and  Sheriffs  across  the  Entrance  Court  to 
the  Porter's  Lodge,  where  a  well-meant  invitation  from  the 
Recorder  to  come  and  have  some  dinner  is  declined,  and  so 
ends  this  extraordinary  episode  so  typical  of  its  day  and 
hour,  in  England,  and  so  full  of  local  interest  in  Charter- 
house. 

I  am  unable  to  say  how  many  years  Charterhouse 
continued  to  be  the  residence  of  the  Portuguese  Ambassa- 
dor. The  fact  stated  by  the  Arundel  MS.  that  the  Countess 
of  Arundel  about  this  time  "  had  lodgings  there "  and 
occasionally  used  them  when  she  came  to  town  (her  husband 
being  at  Arundel  House)  does  not  preclude  the  possibility, 
in  so  large  a  mansion,  of  the  Portuguese  Ambassador 
occupying  the  main  portion.  She  doubtless  ceased  to 
keep  her  lodging  at  Charterhouse  upon  her  reunion  with 
Arundel  after  1570,  when  Arundel  House  became  their 
home,  and  we  have  no  records  from  that  time  to  ArundePs 
attainder,  1589,  to  tell  us  what  use  the  place  was  put  to, 
beyond,  of  course,  the  record  of  Sincleere's  custody  which 
covers  the  whole  period.  But  in  the  autumn,  1589,  a 
commission  or  jury  was  appointed  to  survey  and  report 
on  Howard  House,  and  also  to  estimate  repairs.  These 
two  documents  resulting  in  1590  from  this  inquiry  are  full 
of  incidental  information,  and  are  of  great  help  in  localising 
certain  features  which  have  since  disappeared,  and  of  still 
more  help  in  realising  the  condition  at  that  moment,  of 
much  that  still  remains.  The  survey  and  estimate  for 
repairs  leaves  the  strong  impression  of  a  Great  House 
which  for  many  years  has  had  little  repair  and  has  suffered 
from  the  absence  of  an  owner's  eye.  It  is  the  kind  of  result 
which  one  expects  from  a  house  which  has  been  let,  or  has 
been  in  charge  of  a  caretaker  who  has  no  authority  to 
incur  great  expenses  in  repair.  Thus  we  read  that  the 
Tarras  (Terrace)  which  leads,  we  must  remember,  out  of 
the  chief  chambers  of  the  mansion  to  the  Duke's  Tennis 
Court,  and  which  we  know  from  an  inscription  on  it  on 
the  outside  of  the  West  Wall  was  built  in  157?  (1570-1571 


CONDITION    OF   THE   MANSION,    1590       151 

alone  possible)  was  now  in  1590,  twenty  years  later, 
in  such  bad  repair  that  the  whole  of  the  battlements 
along  the  263  feet  on  each  side  had  to  be  taken  down  and 
rebuilt  (incidentally  we  learn  that  it  is  paved  with  Newcastle 
stone).  And  the  square  house  at  the  end  of  Tarras  adjoin- 
ing the  main  house  (the  measurements  given  enable  us 
to  identify  it  with  the  building  as  we  now  have  it)  is  in  so 
bad  a  state  that  the  top  floor  *  and  roof  had  to  be  removed. 
"  The  Main  House  on  the  N.  side  towards  the  Terrace 
to  be  repaired  with  best  of  stone  being  in  decaye  and  plum- 
mer's  work  will  cost  50£  and  for  glazing  10£.  The  Great 
Mansion  House  to  be  repaired  and  tiling  glazing  creaste 
and  mending  the  lead  will  cost  30£.  The  coping  of  the 
wall  in  circuit  to  be  tiled  in  the  decayed  places  10£." 

All  this  looks  like  a  house  not  kept  in  repair  from  year 
to  year,  or  month  to  month,  and  it  certainly  seems  to  point 
to  tenancies  such  as  that  of  a  Portuguese  Ambassador 
— one  can  imagine  what  that  might  be  like  in  that  day — 
for  a  few  years,  and  perhaps  no  tenant  at  all  for  as  many 
more.  It  is  not  to  be  thought  that  the  buildings  could  have 
come  to  the  state  of  decay  above  described  in  so  short  a 
time  on  any  other  supposition. 

And,  naturally,  we  should  not  expect  to  find  any 
additions  or  important  changes  in  Howard  House  which 
we  can  attribute  with  any  probability  to  Philip  Earl 
of  Arundel.  It  may,  I  think,  be  taken  that  the  mansion 
at  his  death  was,  save  for  the  processes  of  decay  and  wear, 
much  the  same  as  it  was  at  the  death  of  his  father,  Norfolk. 

Whether,  after  the  report  of  the  jury  in  1590,  the 
Crown  to  whom  Charterhouse  now  reverted,  undertook 
the  necessary  repairs,  cannot  be  ascertained.  Elizabeth 
had  no  fondness  for  spending  money  on  "  repairs  "  either 
for  men  or  ships,  or  for  buildings,  and  it  is  possible  that  the 
buildings  were  left  to  further  dilapidation  until  they  came 
into  the  hands  of  their  next  noble  occupant,  eleven  years 
later.  It  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  those  repairs  would 

*  We  can  to-day  see  where  this  was  done,  the  upper  portion 
having  been  replaced  in  red  brick.  The  supply  of  monastic  stone 
material  had  long  given  out. 


152  PHILIP  EARL  OF  ARUNDEL 

have  been  undertaken  at  the  Crown  expense  and  the  whole 
then  left  unoccupied  for  so  many  years,  as  we  know  to  have 
been  the  case. 

From  the  attainder  of  Arundel  in  1589  onwards  to  the 
date  of  his  half-brother's  tenancy  in  1601,  the  rents  of 
Charterhouse,  such  as  Whitwell  Beech  *  and  houses  and 
property  in  Charterhouse  Square,  were  taken  over  by  the 
Crown,  and  all  leases  made  out  in  Elizabeth's  name.  In 
1593,  Edward  Morris,  gent,  of  London,  was  appointed 
custodian  in  place  of  John  Shinkler  (so  spelt  this  time), 
who  had  surrendered  the  agreement  by  which  (from  Aug.  12, 
1569)  he  was  to  hold  the  post  for  life.  We  are  not  told 
what,  if  any,  compensation  was  made  to  the  old  Scottish 
gardener  ;  perhaps  he  found  it  in  his  house  and  his  bowling 
green  in  Charterhouse  Square. 

In  1595,  as  we  have  seen,  Philip  of  Arundel  died  in 
the  Tower.  The  estates  by  entail  should  have  passed  to 
his  son,  Thomas  Howard,  a  boy  of  some  ten  years  old 
who  was  with  his  mother,  the  £ountess  Anne,  at  Arundel 
House.  This  time,  however,  the  attainder  had  been 
allowed  to  have  its  full  effect,  sweeping  away  all  claim 
established  by  entail  or  aught  else. 

For  the  present  no  assignment  of  the  estate  of  Charter- 
house was  made.  Nor  is  any  deed  found  bearing  date 
earlier  than  Oct.  29,  1601,  when  Elizabeth  granted  Charter- 
house to  Lord  Thomas  Howard,  the  deed  ending  in  these 
words  : — 

"  And  whereas  the  said  Duke  [of  Norfolk]  was  attainted 
of  high  treason  (1572)  and  whereas  afterwards  Philip 
Earl  of  Surrey  and  afterwards  Earl  of  Arundel  was  like- 
wise attainted  (1589)  and  whereas  said  Thomas  Lord 
Howard  Baron  of  Walden  levied  a  Fine  to  us  and  our 
successors  of  all  said  lands  (see  Feet  of  Fines  this  year 
1601)  know  ye  that  for  the  faithful  services  of  said  Thomas 
Lord  Howard  Baron  of  Walden  We  have  granted  him 
by  these  presents  .  .  .  the  said  Capital  Messuage  called 
Howard  House  alias  Charterhouse,  the  orchard  and 

*  Pardon  Churchyard  and  Whitwell  Beech,  which,  as  shown  in 
a  previous  chapter,  were  part  of  Manny's  gift,  remain  part  of  Charter- 
house Clerkenwell  estate  to  this  day. 


LORD   THOMAS    HOWARD— CUMBERLAND     153 

Garden  etc  Pardon  Church  Yard  and  White  Welbech 
[Whitwell  Beech]  To  him  and  his  heirs  for  ever  paying  us 
yearly  822.  0.  0  in  two  annual  portions." 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  for  most  of  the  rest  of  Eliza- 
beth's reign  Lord  Thomas  Howard  held  Charterhouse 
not  as  freehold  but  as  a  tenant  under  the  Crown.  *  The  con- 
cluding sentences  are  also  important  as  showing — it  has 
been  denied — that  an  entail  was  not  recognised  as  of  force 
in  a  case  where  attainder  for  treason  intervened.  It  was 
not  till  1601  that  he  received  it  by  a  grant  from  the  Queen 
as  a  reward  for  good  services.  And  this  grant  was  renewed 
and  confirmed  by  James  in  1603. 

It  is  in  the  last  years  of  ArundeFs  life  that  we  find 
Charterhouse  in  the  occupation — clearly  as  a  temporary 
tenancy  of  the  Crown — of  one  of  the  most  fascinating 
figures  of  Elizabeth's  day,  George  Clifford,  Earl  of  Cumber- 
land. Letters  both  from  himself  and  his  countess  show 
that  from  1593  to  1595  (probably  both  earlier  and  later) 
they  had  with  their  children  lived  in  Howard  House. 
Sometimes  described  as  a  "  naval  Don  Quixote  " — the 
comparison  is  only  possible  to  a  writer  who  mistakes  both 
characters — he  was,  nevertheless,  with  all  his  faults,  one 
of  those  chivalrous,  erratic,  dauntless  beings  who  make 
all  naval  enterprise  under  Elizabeth  into  romance.  He 
had  commanded  the  Elizabeth  Bonaventura  in  the  Armada 
fights  with  the  greatest  gallantry.  Then  the  Queen  lends 
him  the  Golden  Lion  for  a  South  Sea  venture — but  he  took 
no  gain  of  money  that  time.  Then  came  his  greatest 
voyage,  his  nearest  approach  to  fortune.  He  had  taken 
the  Victory  with  six  others,  at  his  own  expense,  to  the 
Spanish  Main  and  captured  the  treasure  galleon  of  the 
West  Indian  Fleet  worth  £100,000.  She  became  a  total 
wreck  in  Mount's  Bay,  and  her  treasure  lies  there  awaiting 
the  day  when  the  sea  shall  give  up  her  secrets ;  and  so  it 
was  with  all  his  enterprises.  At  home  a  courtier,  gambler, 
man  about  town ;  at  sea,  a  sailor,  a  brave  gentleman, 
unselfish,  enduring,  but  always  unlucky. 

*  In  fee-farm. 


154  PHILIP  EARL  OF  ARUNDEL 

In  1594  he  had  by  the  accidental  blowing  up  of  their 
ship  the  Cinco  Clagas  during  an  engagement  taken  prisoner 
three  Spanish  grandees,  Don  Rodrigo  Castiliano,  Don 
Duarte  de  Sayas,  and  Don  Juan  de  Sousa,  two  of  whom 
he  brought  to  Charterhouse,  where  they  lived  nearly  a 
year  in  honourable  captivity  till  their  ransom  should 
arrive.  Cumberland  was  a  great  favourite  of  Elizabeth, 
whose  glove  set  with  diamonds  he  wore  ever  in  his  cap. 
So  we  see  him  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Was 
it  thus  he  walked  these  courts  ?  Was  it  thus  that  he 
entertained  in  Howard  House,  Drake  and  Manson  and 
Baskerville  and  many  another  of  his  own  kidney  ?  One 
may  not  stop  to  imagine  pictures,  but  what  material  for 
them !  It  is  to  the  more  prosaic  evidence  of  one  of  his 
letters  that  we  must  turn.  On  Sept.  1,  1594,  he  writes 
to  Burghley  expressing  a  hope  that  he  will  favour  my 
Lord  Tomas  [Howard]  in  his  suite. 

Sir  J.  Fortescue  "  hath  dealt  with  her  Maie  in  it  who 
after  much  speche  (as  he  sayeth)  concluded  not  unwillingly 
to  grant  what  my  Lord  desired  but  in  fee-farme."  There 
can,  I  think,  be  no  moral  doubt  that  the  suit  was  none 
other  than  a  request  that  Howard  House — confiscated 
to  the  Crown  by  ArundePs  attainder  and  sentence — should 
be  bestowed  on  Lord  Thomas.  Which,  in  fact,  it  presently 
was  after  1595  in  "  fee-farme  "  (i.e.  tenancy).  How  long 
Cumberland  remained  in  Charterhouse  is  not  known  to  us. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

HOWARD   HOUSE   UNDER  LORD   THOMAS  HOWARD, 
EARL   OF   SUFFOLK,   1601-1611 

THE  new  tenant  of  Charterhouse,  destined  to  be  the  last 
tenant  of  it  in  its  mansion  stage,  was  the  second  son,  born 
in  1563,  of  the  fourth  Duke  of  Norfolk  (d.  1572)  by  his 
second  wife,  Margaret  Audley,  daughter  of  Lord  Chancellor 
Audley,  who  played  his  part  in  the  trials  of  More  and 
Rochester  and  many  another  whose  lives  were  forfeit  in 
the  reign  of  Henry.  His  father,  on  the  eve  of  his  execution, 
had  entrusted  him  to  the  care  of  his  half-brother  Philip, 
aged  fifteen,  and  little  enough  able  to  take  care  even  of 
himself.  It  was  probably  his  uncle  who  looked  after  the 
orphan  boys.  Lord  Thomas  Howard  went,  like  Philip,  to 
Cambridge  (St.  John's),  though,  as  being  younger,  at  a 
later  date.  His  kinsman,  Lord  Charles  Howard  of  Effing- 
ham,  had  been  made  Lord  High  Admiral  in  1585,  and  when 
men  were  waiting  for  the  coming  of  the  fleet  of  Spain  in 
1587  the  young  Howard,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  was 
with  him  on  the  quarter-deck  of  the  flagship  the  Ark 
Royal  (late  Ark  Ralegh],  "  the  one  odd  ship  for  all  con- 
ditions," as  her  commander  wrote  of  her,  and  the  finest 
sailer  in  the  fleet.  It  is  quite  possible  that  Lord  Thomas 
had  already  learnt  the  ropes  in  some  other  enterprise, 
since  we  have  no  knowledge  of  his  doings  after  his  leaving 
college.  Effingham  formed  a  high  opinion  of  his  young 
kinsman,  and  in  the  spring  of  1588  gave  him  the  command 
of  the  Golden  Lion,  of  500  tons,  250  mariners,  and  carrying 
heavy  and  light  guns.  The  choice  was  soon  justified.  In 

155 


156    LORD  THOMAS  HOWARD,  EARL  OF  SUFFOLK 

the  long  day's  battle  off  Portland  Bill,  on  July  23,  he  showed 
great  gallantry.  The  Lion  together  with  the  Triumph 
(Frobisher),  the  Mary  Rose  (Fenton),  and  two  others  got 
separated  from  the  fleet  to  leeward  and  had  to  fight  an 
unequal  action.  They  were  with  difficulty  rescued  by 
the  Ark  (Effingham),  the  galleon  Leicester  (Capt.  George 
Fennar),  the  Victory  (Drake),  the  Dreadnought  (Beston), 
and  two  others.  The  wind  luckily  changing,  the  twelve 
ships  seized  the  chance  and  bore  down  upon  the  Spaniards. 
"  It  may  be  well  said,"  says  the  despatch,  "  that  for  the 
time  there  never  was  seen  a  more  terrible  value  of  great 
shot  nor  more  hot  fight  than  this  was."  It  was  indeed,  as 
was  Gravelines  a  few  days  later — though  these  very  names 
are  forgotten  by  the  average  Englishman, — a  battle  which, 
for  its  value  to  England,  should  be  counted  with  the  Nile 
and  Trafalgar.  Effingham  had  a  month  earlier  written 
to  Walsingham  of  Lord  Thomas  Howard  and  Lord  Sheffield, 
"  I  do  assure  you,  Sir,  that  these  two  noblemen  be  most 
gallant  gentlemen  and  not  only  forward  but  very  discreet 
in  all  their  doings.  I  would  to  God  I  could  say  for  Her 
Majesty's  service  that  there  were  four  such  young  noble- 
men behind  to  save  her."  Two  days  after  the  Battle  of 
Portland,  when  the  fleet  was  off  Calais,  on  July  25,*  Lord 
Thomas  Howard,  Lord  Sheffield,  Roger  Townshend, 
Martin  Frobisher,  John  Hawkins,  and  George  Beston  were 
called  on  board  the  Ark  and  there  knighted  by  Effingham 
on  the  quarter-deck.  Never  has  knighthood  been  better 
bestowed. 

Lord  Thomas  was  one  of  Effingham's  Inner  Council  of 
War,  and  his  signature  appears  with  those  of  Drake  and 
Hawkins,  Thomas  Fenner,  and  the  others,  to  the  decision 
of  that  Council  (to  be  seen  in  the  British  Museum)  made 
on  board  the  Ark  off  Calais,  to  follow  the  Spanish  fleet  till 
they  had  put  the  Firth  of  Forth  to  the  west  of  them.  In 
the  fight  off  Calais,  two  days  after  his  knighthood,  he  did 
very  valiantly  and  showed  that  he  had  fairly  earned  his 
spurs,  and  so  once  again  in  the  crowning  victory  of  Grave- 
lines.  A  notice  in  the  Navy  reports  shows  that  the  Golden 
*  I  find  this  in  the  Naval  Records  also  given  as  July  26. 


LORD   HOWARD   AND   THE    REVENGE     157 

Lion  suffered  a  good  deal.  In  September  she  had  to  put 
into  port  to  get  her  mainmast  fished,  and  in  November, 
the  great  work  being  over,  she  was  overhauled  and  her 
inasts  pronounced  to  be  "  nothing  worth,"  being  all 
clamped  together  with  iron. 

Lord  Thomas  had  marked  himself  as  a  born  sailor,  and 
three  years  after  the  Armada  battles,  in  1591,  he  was  in 
command  of  the  six  ships  which  were  sent  to  waylay  the 
Spanish  treasure  fleet  on  its  return  from  the  Indies.  It 
was  one  of  those  ventures  national  in  name  but  equipped 
by  the  money  of  shareholders  from  Elizabeth  downwards, 
Ralegh  himself  owning  one  entire  ship.  This  time  there 
were  no  dividends.  The  little  squadron,  waiting  off 
Flores  in  the  Azores,  found  itself  almost  in  presence  of  the 
Spanish  fleet  of  over  fifty  sail,  King's  ships  and  armed 
merchantmen  combined.  Lord  Thomas  weighed  anchor 
and  saved  five  of  his  ships,  but  Sir  Richard  Grenville  in 
the  Revenge  *  waited  towing  off  his  sick  men  from  on 
shore,  and  all  that  night  and  next  morning  fought  that 
fight  of  the  one  against  the  fifty-three  which  will  never  be 
forgotten  so  long  as  England  takes  any  pride  in  her  history. 
Lord  Thomas  has  been  at  times  reproached  for  not  staying 
behind  to  share  Grenville's  fate.  But  it  is  hardly  open  to 
dispute  that  in  saving  his  little  squadron  from  an  inevitable 
disaster  he  did  his  duty  to  his  country. 

That  Elizabeth  and  Burlegh  read  it  so  is  clear  from 
the  fact  that  in  1596  he  was  set  to  command  one  of  the 
three  squadrons,  the  others  being  under  Essex  and  Ralegh, 
which  carried  out  the  siege  of  Cadiz  and  the  destruction  of 
the  Spanish  fleet  there.  But  the  feat  of  all  others  which 
marks  best  his  place  amongst  English  seamen  is,  perhaps, 
the  least  known  and  least  often  recorded.  In  1597  f  he 
was  again  in  command  of  one  of  three  squadrons,  his 
colleagues  being  as  before,  Essex  and  Ralegh,  who  at  a 
moment  of  great  apparent  peril,  were  sent  to  assault 

*  This  is,  of  course,  the  occasion  of  Tennyson's  well-known 
ballad. 

t  ID  the  same  year  he  was  created  Baron  Howard  de  Walden, 
and  from  him  descend  the  recent  holders  of  that  title. 

M 


158    LORD  THOMAS  HOWARD,  EARL  OF  SUFFOLK 

Ferrol  and,  if  possible,  once  more  to  destroy  the  Spanish 
fleet  in  port  there.     A  great  storm  overtook  them.     Essex, 
brave,  but  no  seaman — a  soldier,  and  not  a  great  one — 
succeeded  in  getting  back  to  Falmouth.     Ralegh,  never  so 
practical  a  seaman  as  Howard,  though  gifted  with  more 
imagination,  also  turned  back.     But  Howard  ran  his  small 
squadron  through  to  Ferrol  in  teeth  of  the  gale.     It  was  a 
fine  act  of  seamanship,  and  though  he  had  to  be  content 
with  a  challenge  to  the  Adelantado  to  come  out  with  all 
his  fleet  and  fight  his  little  squadron — a  challenge  which 
was  gracefully  declined — he  alone  had  done  what  he  was 
sent  for.     But  it  was  his  last  notable  feat.     He  was  made 
Admiral  of  the  Fleet  in  1599  when  England  was  waiting 
for  the  "  Invisible  Armada  "  which  never  came — and  then 
no  more.     In  Feb.,  1601,  when  Londoners  saw  the  strange 
sight  of  St.  Clement  Danes  tower  armed  with  cannon  to 
command  Essex  House,   where  Essex  lay  in  a  state  of 
siege,  Lord  Thomas  acted  as  Marshal  to  the  besieging  army 
with  Howard  of  Effingham  in  command — a  sorry  service 
for  these  men  of  the  Armada.     He  was  in  the  early  days 
of  James,  a  privy  councillor,  made  Earl  of  Suffolk  in  July, 
1603,  and  high  in  Court  favour,  which,  however,  he  was 
destined  to  outlive,  though  to  his  sagacity  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Gunpowder  Plot  in  1605  had  been  mainly  due. 
To  say  truth,  however,  he  showed  better  on  sea  than  on 
land,  as  an  Admiral  rather  than  as  a  Statesman,  and  above 
all  on  his  own  quarter-deck  rather  than  on  the  floor  of  his 
own  house.     His  wife,  Mary  Dacre,  sister  of  the  Countess 
of  Arundel  (for  Norfolk  had  married  his  three  sons  to  his 
three  step-daughters  and  wards)  was  a  masterful  and  not 
too  scrupulous  a  woman.     She  freely  increased  her  pin 
money,  not  with  Suffolk's  consent,  by  supplying  informa- 
tion to   Spain,   and  perhaps  by  other  means.     In   1618 
Suffolk  was  accused  of  grave  doings  at  the  Treasury,  and 
his  wife  of  taking  money  from  those  who  had  suits  to 
present.     The  Star  Chamber  fined  him  £30,000,  though  the 
evidence   was    not    conclusive.     The   fine   was    presently 
reduced  to  £7000,  representing  probably  the  amount  of 
the  Countess'  guilt,  and  Suffolk  was  restored  to  office.     He 


JAMES    I.    AT   CHARTERHOUSE  159 

lived  to  be  avenged  on  Bacon  when  he  took  part  in  the 
latter's  trial  in  1621,  and  so  with  some  return  to  his  ancient 
honours,  he  spent  his  last  years  at  Audley  End  and  died 
there  in  1626,  two  years  after  Howard  of  Effingham,  a  hale 
old  man  of  over  eighty,  had  gone  to  his  haven. 

To  turn  to  the  direct  connection  of  Lord  Thomas 
Howard  with  Charterhouse.  I  have  tried  to  show,  in  an 
earlier  chapter,  that  we  have  no  deed  granting  Howard 
House  to  him  before  1601  ;  and  we  have  no  reason  to 
say  that  he  lived  in  the  mansion  before  that  date. 

Elizabeth,  who,  though  she  was  thought  to  bear  a  grudge 
against  the  Howards,  had  a  liking  for  him  as  one  of  her 
best  admirals  and  called  him  "  my  good  Thomas,"  came 
to  visit  him  at  Charterhouse  (it  was  her  fourth  visit  in  all) 
in  January  of  1603.  There  is  something  pathetic  in  the 
picture  which  rises  to  the  mind  of  the  haggard  old  woman 
— broken  hearted,  too,  if  tradition  tells  true,  though  there 
were  men  found  to  doubt  if  there  was  a  heart  to  break — 
sitting  among  her  courtiers  there  where  she  had  sat  forty- 
five  years  before  in  the  first  few  days  of  her  Queendom. 
Two  months  later  she  was  dead,  and  the  son  of  the  woman 
who  had  been  her  lifelong  enemy  was  sitting  in  that  same 
hall  among  the  selfsame  courtiers.  James  I  used  it,  as 
she  had  done,  as  his  first  resting-place  on  his  coming  to 
London  for  four  days,  from  May  7-11.  Lord  Thomas 
had  already  a  few  days  earlier  been  made  his  Chamberlain. 
We  learn  from  two  accounts  how  over  seventy  of  the  city 
fathers,  all  in  velvet  gowns  and  gold  chains,  met  him  and 
helped  to  escort  him ;  how,  in  order  to  avoid  the  dust — it 
had  been  mud  at  Elizabeth's  entry — the  Royal  party  who 
came  in  from  Islington  by  Wood's  Close,  now  Northampton 
Street,  left  the  King's  highway  and  rode  across  the  fields, 
a  thing  that  may  well  have  troubled  his  Majesty,  who  sat 
no  better  on  a  horse  than  he  did  upon  a  throne,  and  entered 
Charterhouse  at  the  backside,  through  a  vast  crowd  who 
seem  to  have  been  very  ill-behaved,  though  boisterously 
loyal.  The  fare  was  sumptuous,  and  James,  who  was  a 
large  eater  and  drinker,  was  pleased. 

"  He  was  most  royal  received  by  the  Lord  Thomas. 


160    LORD  THOMAS  HOWARD,  EARL  OF  SUFFOLK 

Where  was  such  abundance  of  provisions  and  all  manner 
of  things  that  greater  could  not  be  :  both  of  rare  wild 
fowls  and  many  rare  and  extraordinary  banquets  to  the 
great  liking  of  His  Majesty  and  contentment  of  the  whole 
train.  He  lay  there  four  nights  (May  7-11,  1603).  He 
made  divers  Knights  whose  names  are  there." 

Thereon  follows  a  list  of  133  names  of  men  who  received 
knighthood  on  May  11  in  the  Great  Chamber  (since  called 
the  Governor's  Room). 

In  July  of  that  same  year  Lord  Thomas  Howard  was 
created  Earl  of  Suffolk.  He  seems  to  have  sat  lightly  to 
Howard  House — perhaps  it  was  too  full  of  ghosts  for  him  ; 
and  his  heart  was  in  his  country  home  at  Audley  Inn  (End), 
where,  with  Thorpe  as  designer  and  Bernard  Jansen  as 
decorator,  he  was  turning  the  old  house  of  Lord  Chancellor 
Audley  into  one  of  the  most  stately  mansions  in  England. 
Perhaps  the  very  costliness  of  such  a  task  is  enough  to 
explain,  without  further  seeking,  why  Suffolk  became 
anxious  to  find  a  buyer  for  his  mansion  in  Charterhouse, 
where  monarchs  were  too  apt  to  find  a  convenient  palace 
at  the  expense  of  their  subjects.  It  happened  that  at 
this  time  our  Founder  was  looking  for  a  site  for  his  princely 
foundation,  and  on  May  9,*  1611,  Howard  House  passed 
into  the  hands  of  "our  munificent  Benefactor  Thomas 
Sutton,"  f  at  the  price  of  £13,000,  and  the  second  or 
Mansion  period  of  Charterhouse  came  to  a  close. 

*  The  Charter  of  James  I  was  signed  June  22. 
t  The    Founder's   Prayer,    still    in    daily   use   in    Charterhouse 
ChapeL 


Scale  of  Feet 


r-r " 

GENERAL   PLAN    OP   HOWARD    HOUSE. 


CHAPTER  XVU 

THE   FABRIC   OF   THE   MANSION   UNDER  NORTH, 
NORTHUMBERLAND,    AND   NORFOLK 

THE  structural  changes  by  which  the  buildings  of  the 
later  monastery  were  adapted  to  the  uses  of  a  mansion 
were  effected  mainly  during  the  tenancy  of  Lord  North 
and  of  the  fourth  Duke  of  Norfolk,  the  brief  ownership  of 
the  Duke  of  Northumberland  having  left  no  mark  upon 
the  place.  There  is  small  difficulty  in  saying  what  portion 
of  the  buildings,  which  are  seen  to-day,  belong  to  the 
entire  Mansion  period,  but  owing  to  the  absence  of  all 
documentary  record,  it  is  very  hard  to  say  what  portions 
were  due  to  North  and  what  to  Norfolk. 

It  has  been  shown  in  the  earlier  pages  of  this  book  that 
through  the  remodelling  of  the  monastic  buildings  (con- 
fined mainly  to  the  parts  around  the  Chapel  and  Little 
Cloister)  under  Prior  Tynbygh  (1499-1529),  Charterhouse 
at  the  hour  of  its  suppression  offered  a  fine  opportunity 
for  the  shaping  within  it  of  a  Tudor  mansion.  The  buildings 
which  surrounded  the  Little  Cloister  (Master's  Court), 
consisting  mainly  of  the  guest  chambers  (on  the  upper 
floor)  the  Prior's  quarters,  the  Refectory  (Great  Hall)  and 
kitchen,  as  well  as  the  Obediences  (Washhouse  Court)  and 
other  offices,  being  practically  new,  needed  but  little 
change  to  adapt  them  to  the  uses  of  a  mansion.  What 
these  changes  really  were  we  can  only  conjecture.  It  is 
clear,  however,  that  North,  once  in  possession  in  1545, 
soon  set  to  work  to  shape  inside  the  walls  of  the  Monastery 
a  mansion  which,  though  it  had  not  the  magnificence 
which  it  reached  in  the  days  of  Norfolk,  yet  was  sumptuous 

161 


162          THE   FABRIC   OF  THE   MANSION 

enough  to  house  a  queen  twice  over.  At  this  point  I  may 
for  convenience  recall  one  or  two  facts  already  mentioned. 
The  conveyance  of  Charterhouse  from  the  Crown  to 
North  (Brydges  and  Hale  surrendering  their  lease)  in  1645 
describes  in  detail  all  the  parts  of  the  Monastery,  besides 
the  properties  in  Charterhouse  Square.  But  it  makes  no 
mention  of  any  mansion  or  "  Capitale  Messuagium " 
within  the  monastery.  But  when  North  conveys  to 
Northumberland  (1553)  the  deed,  practically  the  same  in 
other  points,  inserts  the  words  "  ac  totam  illam  Mansionem 
sive  capitalem  messuagium  ac  omnia  ac  singula  domos 
edificia  et  struct  nuper  sedificata." 

And  here,  of  course,  we  have  a  clear  indication,  if  any 
were  wanted,  that  North,  in  the  eight  years  which  had 
elapsed  since  Henry  VIII  had  granted  the  site  to  him,  had 
shaped  a  mansion  around  the  Little  Cloister.  When  we 
come,  however,  to  consider  the  relative  splendour  of  that 
mansion,  as  it  was  seen  under  North  and  under  the  Howards, 
we  find  that  whereas  North  in  1564  (the  deed  became 
actual  in  1565)  sold  Charterhouse,  with  the  properties  in 
Charterhouse  Square,  to  Norfolk  for  £2200  with  £300 
additional  for  Pardon  Churchyard,  the  same  property  is 
sold  in  1611,  forty-six  years  later,  by  Thomas  Howard, 
Earl  of  Suffolk,  to  Thomas  Sutton  for  £13,000.  And  here 
we  have  the  measure  of  the  improvements  wrought  in 
North's  original  mansion  by  Norfolk. 

Queen  Elizabeth,  when  she  paid  her  first  visit  to 
Norfolk — her  third  to  Charterhouse — doubtless  found  a 
very  different  mansion  from  that  which  had  housed  her 
when  she  came  to  it  before  her  coronation. 

We  may  entirely  pass  over  the  Church,  which  seems  to 
have  remained  more  or  less  derelict  throughout  the  Mansion 
period.  I  have,  however,  already  pointed  out  that  Maurice 
Chauncey's  statement  that  it  was  used  by  North  as  a 
dining  hall  may,  if  it  be  correct,  possibly  be  explained  by 
the  fact  that  structural  alterations  were  being  at  the  time 
made  to  the  Refectory  (Great  Hall)  to  adapt  it  to  the  use 
of  a  Banquet  Hall.  If  this  be  so  then  we  should  have  to 
attribute  the  raising  of  the  roof  of  the  Hall  in  the  first 


NORTH    OR   NORFOLK  163 

instance  to  North.  That  such  a  change  was  made  is,  I 
think,  beyond  doubt.  The  row  of  square-headed  windows 
above  the  larger  windows  was  inserted  in  the  Mansion 
period  and  represents  approximately  the  addition  in  height 
which  was  made.  A  visit  to  the  rafters  of  the  roof,  now 
concealed  from  sight  by  the  ceiling  above  the  hammer 
beams,  leaves  on  the  mind  the  strong  impression  of  a  great 
jumble  of  beams  and  rafters  which  resulted  from  the 
heightening  of  the  roof,  and  had  to  be  concealed  by  the 
ceiling  aforesaid.  The  lower  part  of  the  fleche,  moreover, 
is  now  buried  within  the  roof,  but  an  examination  of  it 
shows  that  it  has  mouldings  and  arched  openings  which 
were  never  meant  to  be  hidden,  and  which  were  once 
external.* 

This  Hall,  now  called  the  Great  Hall  or  Pensioners' 
Hall,  has  also  in  recent  years  been  christened  "  the  Guesten 
Hall."  I  am  not  able  to  trace  this  name  further  back  than 
forty  years.  It  certainly  was  not  known  in  my  own  day 
at  school  (1856-64),  nor  can  1  find  any  of  my  contem- 
poraries who  ever  heard  the  name  for  it.f  It  is  due  to  the 
belief  that  the  Great  Hall  represents  the  Guest  Hall  of  the 
Monastery.  I  cannot  share  that  belief.  I  can  see  in  the 
Great  Hall  only  the  Refectory  of  the  Monastery,  removed 
to  this  position  by  Prior  Tynbygh.  It  had  previously,  as 
we  learn  from  the  monastery  plan,  occupied  the  site  in  the 
Great  Cloister  where  the  Brothers'  Library  is  now  found.  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  that  by  Tynbygh's  alterations  the 
original  Refectory,  which  had  become  too  small  for  the 
large  number  of  monks — now  often  over  thirty  without 
visitors — and  became  the  Lay  Brothers'  Refectory  (it  is 
common  in  Charterhouses  for  the  Lay  Brothers  to  occupy 
a  separate  Refectory)  while  the  Monks'  Refectory  was 
rebuilt  further  to  the  north.  The  Great  Hall  would  be  by 

*  I  may  add  that  the  corbels  which  support  the  hammer  beams 
in  the  interior  of  the  Hall  appear  to  me  now  to  be  in  positions  with 
relation  to  the  windows  below  which  they  would  not  have  been 
likely  to  occupy  in  an  original  design.  But  here,  I  ought  to  say,  I 
do  not  find  some  distinguished  architects  in  agreement  with  me. 

t  Miss  Caroline  Hale,  who  spent  her  youth  in  Charterhouse  up 
to  1872,  also  assures  me  that  she  never  heard  the  name. 


164  THE   FABRIC   OF  THE   MANSION 

no  means  too  large  for  twenty-four  to  thirty  monks,  seeing 
that  it  is  the  custom  for  the  Fathers  to  sit  in  Refectory  on 
one  side  only  of  the  table,  namely  that  nearest  to  the  wall. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  have  never  seen — except  at  Ferrara, 
whose  circumstances  were  exceptional — any  Charterhouse 
which  possessed  a  Guest  Chamber  on  so  large  a  scale.  It 
is  far  more  probable  that  the  guests,  who  could  never  have 
been  so  numerous  as  to  need  a  very  large  Hall,  took  their 
meals  in  large  upper  rooms  in  the  guests'  quarters. 

Here  I  may  mention  a  tradition  which  exists  at  Charter- 
house that  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  set  back  the  east  wing  of 
the  mansion  (in  Masters'  Court)  some  fifteen  feet  to  the 
east.  I  am  unable  to  trace  the  source  of  this  tradition. 
If  the  tradition  is  sound  a  glance  at  the  general  plan,  and 
at  the  existing  buildings,  makes  it  evident  that  in  such 
case  the  original  west  front  of  the  east  wing  of  the  Little 
Cloister  must  have  been  in  a  line  with  the  west  wall  of  the 
Cloister  Arcade,  and  many  further  suggestions  become 
possible  in  such  a  view.  We  must,  however,  be  content 
to  merely  mention  the  tradition  for  what  it  is  worth. 

The  oriel  window  of  the  Great  Hall  which  projects 
into  Masters'  Court  was  probably  no  part  of  the  Refectory 
but  was  added  by  North  or  Norfolk.  It  once  projected 
much  further  into  the  Court,  but  in  the  eighteenth  century 
it  was  pulled  down  and  the  window  was  replaced  in  a 
much  shorter  bay.  Above  the  arch  which  unites  the  bay 
with  the  Main  Hall,  on  the  south  front,  are  the  words 
"  Think  and  Thank."  Owing  to  the  angle  of  sight  these 
words  are  quite  invisible  now  from  below.  But  their 
position  shows  that  the  bay  must  once  have  been  of 
considerable  length,*  since  on  no  other  condition  could 
the  inscription  have  been  seen. 

*  One  of  the  coats  of  arms  preserved  in  the  window  of  the  bay 
is  that  of  the  protector  Somerset  (d.  1547).  If  we  could  assume 
that  this  piece  of  glass  had  been  in  this  window  from  the  first,  and 
had  been  merely  replaced  when  the  bay  was  rebuilt,  we  could,  of 
course,  only  attribute  the  bay  to  North.  Tn  any  case  the  existence 
of  this  coat  of  arms  in  Charterhouse  must  be  due  to  the  fact  that 
Somerset  was,  with  North,  one  of  the  Council  of  Trustees  for  carrying 
on  the  Government  in  the  early  years  of  the  reign  of  Edward  VI. 
There  were  probably  other  armorial  bearings  which  have  perished. 


THE    SCREEN   IN   GREAT   HALL  165 

We  are  safe,  perhaps,  in  assigning  the  long  gallery 
which  runs  east  and  west  on  the  north  side  of  the  Hall 
to  Norfolk.  It  seems  to  be  of  the  same  date  as  the 
great  staircase  outside,  and  was  evidently  made  to  be  an 
easy  means  of  communication  between  the  rooms  in  the 
west  wing  (where  the  Duke's  privie  chamber  or  study  was) 
and  those  in  the  east  wing,  without  the  necessity  of  passing 
through  the  Great  Chamber  (Governor's  Room).  The  gallery 
originally  led  directly  from  the  landing  of  the  great  staircase 
to  a  door  (now  closed)  which  gave  access  to  the  lobby. 

But  at  this  point  arises  a  question  of  some  interest. 
An  examination  of  the  points  of  junction  between  the 
great  screen  and  this  long  gallery  shows  that  the  two  were 
not  part  of  one  original  design.  There  has  been  much 
cutting  and  adapting  of  the  screen  to  get  it  into  its  place, 
and  the  methods  used  for  that  end  cannot  be  called  at  all 
happy.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  two  consoles  on  the  right 
of  the  screen  have  been  shifted  each  a  little  to  the  left  and 
no  longer  rest  on  the  capitals  below.  The  panel  on  the 
extreme  right  in  the  music  gallery  has  been  entirely  sacri- 
ficed to  the  gangway  opening  and  has  disappeared ;  and 
there  are  other  signs  of  adaptation  and  dislocation  which 
show  that  this  screen  and  music  gallery  were  added  at  a 
later  period  than  the  long  east  and  west  gallery. 

The  screen  has  on  its  frieze  shields  which  bear  the 
initials  T.  N.  1571,  the  year,  we  shall  remember,  when 
Norfolk  was  a  prisoner  in  his  own  home.  He  seems  to 
have  employed  his  time  in  making  Howard  House  more 
magnificent.  It  is,  however,  evident  that  this  screen  with 
its  upper  music  gallery  was  not  designed  for  its  place,  but 
was  imported  by  the  Duke  either  from  one  of  his  many 
houses  or  from  some  other  source.  Though  its  effect  in 
its  place  is  rich  and  striking,  it  is  hardly  of  the  finest 
workmanship.  It  served,  however,  over  and  above  its 
effect  upon  the  eye,  three  useful  purposes.  First,  to 
intercept  to  some  extent  the  bitter  draughts ;  secondly,  to 
carry  a  gallery  for  the  musicians  ;  and  thirdly,  to  hide  from 
the  banqueters  the  kitchen  hatches  which  were  previously 
in  full  view. 


166  THE  FABRIC   OF  THE   MANSION 

To  Norfolk,  too,  must  be  assigned  the  Great  Staircase 
outside  the  Great  Hall  to  the  east.  In  one  of  William 
Barker's  confessions,  Oct.  14,  1571,  he  speaks  of  having 
brought  Ridolfi  to  the  Duke  by  the  "  new  payer  of  stayers 
that  goeth  up  to  the  old  Wardrobe,"  which  can  hardly  be 
any  but  the  Great  Staircase.  It  was  probably  inserted, 
together  with  the  Long  Gallery  which  led  from  its  landing, 
in  the  first  years  of  Norfolk's  tenancy.  A  water-colour 
drawing  in  the  British  Museum  shows  that  up  to  the  first 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  entrance  to  it  from 
the  Master's  Court  was  in  the  north  wall  of  the  court,  and 
not  in  its  present  position  at  the  corner.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  previously  all  the  staircases  of  the 
mansion  had  been  external,*  and  this  very  fine  internal 
staircase  added  greatly  both  to  the  comfort  and  dignity 
of  the  mansion. 

The  terrace  and  the  brick  arcade  below  (known  as 
"  cloisters  ")  we're  made  by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  to  give 
access,  in  dry  weather  or  in  wet,  to  his  tennis  court.  The 
west  wall  has  on  its  external  face — visible  only  from  the 
narrow  court  below — the  figures  157,  the  last  figure  having 
disappeared.  It  can,  of  course,  only  have  read  as  1570 
or  1571. 

The  Great  Chamber  or  Governor's  Room  was  probably 
in  existence  under  North  but  was  greatly  beautified  by 
Norfolk,  who  added  the  very  fine  ceiling  f  and  probably 
also  the  magnificent  fireplace.  The  fireplace  in  the 
Master's  drawing-room  is  also  probably  an  insertion  by 
Norfolk. 

It  may  be  taken  as  practically  certain  that  North  took 
over  the  outbuildings  of  the  Monastery  round  the  Laundry 
Court  (Washhouse  Court)  and  on  the  site  of  the  present 
Preachers'  and  Pensioners'  Courts,  with  very  little  change, 

*  One  only  of  these  remain,  viz.  at  the  north-west  angle  of 
Master's  Court.  That  staircase  led  up  to  the  Duke's  privie  chamber, 
where  the  letter  of  Mary  Stuart  was  found.  One  wall  only  of  the 
external  staircase,  which  led  from  the  Entrance  Court  up  to  the 
Long  Gallery  of  Howard  House,  is  still  visible. 

t  The  armorial  bearings  are  none  of  them  later  than  Norfolk's 
date. 


AN   ELIZABETHAN   TOWN  HOUSE          167 

and  passed  them  on  to  Norfolk  much  as  he  had  received 
them,  they  being,  as  we  have  seen,  comparatively  new  and 
quite  serviceable  for  the  uses  of  the  Mansion. 

Here,  then,  we  have,  allowing  for  some  uncertainties  of 
authorship,  a  tolerably  clear  picture  of  Howard  House  as 
it  stood  on  the  day  when  Norfolk  went  forth  from  it  on 
the  "  Fote-clothe  Nag."  It  had  become  in  the  twenty- 
seven  years  that  had  passed  since  North  became  the 
owner  of  the  deserted  Monastery  one  of  the  most  sumptuous 
of  the  town  palaces  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth.  To-day  it  is 
the  only  town  palace  left  to  us  of  its  date  (there  are,  of 
course,  many  noble  country  houses  of  the  date  in  England) 
which  retains  any  considerable  features  of  its  origin.  The 
centuries  which  have  passed  have  left  to  it,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  it  has  been  in  daily  use  since  that  time,  and  that 
it  has  been  often  altered  and  adapted  to  modern  uses, 
much  more  than  might  have  been  expected  of  its  ancient 
beauty.  If  Northumberland  and  Norfolk,  if  Burghley 
and  Walsingham,  if  Elizabeth  and  James,  if  Suffolk  and 
Ralegh,  Drake  and  Cumberland  could  come  back  to  the 
halls  where  they  were  once  at  home  they  would  still  see 
a  very  great  deal  which  they  had  set  eyes  on  in  the  greatest 
of  English  centuries. 


THOMAS   SUTTON 

FEW  men  of  equal  importance  have  met  with  worse 
treatment  at  the  hands  of  their  biographers  than  our 
Soldier  Founder  Thomas  Sutton.  The  proved  facts  of  his 
life  are  so  few  that  they  might  have  met  with  better 
husbandry  from  those  who  have  handled  them.  Yet  even 
these  have  been  for  the  most  part  omitted  or  presented  in 
form  so  disguised  and  grotesque  as  to  make  them  hard  to 
recognise.  And  in  their  place  we  have  had  impossibilities, 
possibilities,  improbabilities,  probabilities,  inferences,  en- 
largements, all  given  the  same  value  as  of  facts,  so  that  the 
true  figure  of  the  man  has  from  the  days  of  his  first 
biographer  till  quite  recently  been  quite  obscured.  It 
may  safely  be  said  that  up  to  the  time  of  the  appearance 
of  the  article  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  no 
trustworthy  account  had  been  written.  Even  now  few 
months  pass  without  notices  in  newspapers  which  describe 
him  as  a  merchant.  This  useful  soldier  of  Elizabeth's  day 
was  merchant,  in  the  latter  days  of  his  life,  only  in  the 
sense  in  which  every  one  in  that  day  who  had  any  money 
to  invest  became  a  merchant,  if  so  it  can  be  called,  by 
taking  some  shares  in  the  merchant  ventures,  half  patriotic, 
half  commercial,  which  went  forth  beyond  the  line  to  the 
far  Indies,  or  to  the  Pacific  shores  when  a  Drake  or  a 
Hawkins,  a  Martin  Frobisher  or  a  George  Fenner,  or  a 
Lord  Thomas  Howard  sailed  with  a  mixed  squadron  in 
search  of  national  honour  and  Spanish  treasure.  Warwick 
and  Leicester,  Ralegh  and  Essex,  Burghley  and  Elizabeth 
were  on  this  showing  all  equally  merchants  with  Thomas 
Sutton,  the  Queen's  Master  of  Ordnance. 

168 


SAMUEL   HERNE  169 

The  first  biographer  of  Sutton  was  Samuel  Herne, 
fellow  of  Clare  College,  Cambridge,  who,  in  1677,  sixty-six 
years  after  the  Founder's  death,  produced  his  work  entitled 
Domus  Carthusiana.  It  is  a  quaint  and  charming  work, 
whose  fancy  is  quite  untrammelled  by  fact ;  but  it  leaves 
one  to  deplore  that  the  earliest  writer  to  take  in  hand  this 
history,  one,  moreover,  who  lived  perhaps  still  within  reach 
of  trustworthy  material,  should  have  missed  his  chance 
in  fashion  so  incredible.  Still  more  is  it  deplorable  that 
almost  every  writer  since  has  more  or  less  been  content  to 
repeat  his  absurdities. 

He  begins  in  his  preface  by  very  rightly  sweeping  aside 
the  casual  notices  of  Baker  and  Peter  Heylyn  and  Thomas 
Fuller  with  all  their  mistakes.  He  quotes  the  childish 
legend  that  Sutton's  fortune  was  due  to  his  finding  one 
day,  as  he  mused  upon  the  seashore,  a  treasure  cast  up  by 
a  wreck.  Having  thus  cleared  his  page  he  gives  us  such  a 
chapter  of  mistakes  on  his  own  part  that  we  are  compelled 
to  say  that  no  statement  made  by  him  can  be  accepted 
unless  verified  from  another  source.  For  example,  he 
gives  the  names  of  Sutton's  father  and  mother  as  Edward 
and  Jane — they  were  Richard  and  Elizabeth.  He  makes 
our  Founder  learn  his  soldiering  in  "  the  Italian  wars," 
and  says  that  he  was  present  at  the  siege  of  Rome — he  does 
not  say  on  which  side,  but  the  omission  is  less  material 
since  the  celebrated  siege  and  sack  of  Rome,  by  the 
Constable  de  Bourbon,  took  place  in  1527,  and  Sutton's 
birth  cannot  be  placed  earlier  than  1532. 

Herne  marries  him  to  the  Lady  Popham,  widow  of  Sir 
John  Popham.  This  couple  were  the  parents  of  Francis 
Popham,  who  married  Sutton's  step-daughter,  Anne 
Dudley.  Sutton  is  made  Victualler  to  the  Navy,  but  the 
Navy  records,  full  of  detail  at  that  time,  do  not  mention 
his  name.  Herne  makes  him  Commissioner  of  Prizes  at 
the  time  of  the  Armada  to  Charles  Howard  of  Effingham 
(whom  Bearcroft,  repeating  the  story,  describes  as  brother 
to  Thomas  Howard,  Duke  of  Norfolk).  Here,  again,  the 
Navy  records  are  silent.  So,  too,  are  these  unimaginative 
documents  silent  as  to  the  picturesque  feature  by  which 


170  THOMAS   SUTTON 

one  of  Sutton's  venture  ships  is  made  to  bring  in  a  Spanish 
galleon  with  £20,000.  Sutton  is  described  as  a  City 
Merchant,  a  Freeman,  and  a  Citizen  of  London.  He  was 
none  of  these  things.  He  is  described  as  a  member  of  the 
Girdlers'  Company,  but  his  name  is  not  found  in  their  books. 
He  is  made  paymaster  to  the  Northern  Army  and  Commis- 
sioner for  Sequestration  of  the  property  of  the  Northern 
Rebels  (1569),  but  no  record  is  forthcoming  to  establish 
the  claim.  It  would  be  easy  to  add  largely  to  the  list,  but 
the  instances  given  are  those  which  have  been  most  often 
and  most  strangely  repeated. 

Sixty  years  later,  in  1737,  Dr.  Philip  Bearcroft,  Preacher 
of  Charterhouse  and  afterwards  Master,  published  his 
Life  of  Thomas  Sutton,  in  which  he  corrected  some  of  the 
most  palpable  of  Herne's  romances,  and  also  took  in  hand 
other  "  vulgar  errors  "  which  passed  current  concerning 
Sutton.  Yet,  by  using  possibilities  as  facts,  he  left  us  a 
work  which  has  misled  his  successors,  especially  Smythe, 
who,  in  1808,  published  an  Historical  Account  of  Charter- 
house by  a  Carthusian,  This  book  is  again  too  full  of 
mistakes  for  unreserved  quotation,  but  its  excellent 
appendices,  with  reprints  of  original  documents,  claim  for 
it  the  highest  place  amongst  the  histories  of  Charterhouse, 
and  incidentally  among  the  lives  of  Sutton  published  up 
to  that  time. 

Thomas  Sutton  was  born  at  Knaith  in  Lincolnshire 
in  1532,  as  we  learn  from  the  inscription  on  the  Founder's 
Tomb  at  Charterhouse.  He  belonged  to  one  of  the  branches 
of  the  old  Lincolnshire  family  of  Sutton,  whose  arms,  well 
known  to-day  to  all  Carthusians,  were  "Or  on  a  Chevron 
between  three  Annulets  Gules,  as  many  Crescents  or."  * 
His  father,  Richard  Sutton,  is  said  to  have  been  steward 
of  the  Courts  at  Lincoln,  and  his  home  was  in  the  parish  of 
St.  Swithun  f  which  lies  near  the  Stone-bow,  the  fine  arch 
which  spans  the  High  Street  of  the  town.  I  have  failed  to 

*  Kinship  has  been  claimed  for  the  Sutton  family  with  that 
of  Dudley,  whose  family  name  was  Sutton.  The  Duke  of  Northum- 
berland is  called  in  the  attainder  John  Dudley  alias  Sutton, 

t  The  parish  church,  destroyed  by  fire  in  16445  is  now  entirely 
modern. 


KNAITH  171 

find  out  why  Richard  Sutton  was  at  Knaith  at  the  time  of 
his  son's  birth.  It  has  been  suggested  that  he  was  there 
as  steward  of  "  the  great  house."  Such  great  house  may 
certainly  have  existed  though  no  trace  of  it  now  remains, 
and  if  so  would  have  probably  been  that  of  the  Darcys, 
who  for  several  centuries  had  been  Lords  of  Knaith.  Or, 
again,  Richard  Sutton  may  have  leased  a  house  there  at 
the  time.  He  does  not,  however,  seem  to  have  owned  any 
property  at  Knaith  since  none  is  mentioned  in  his  will. 
But  no  certainty  can  be  arrived  at  on  the  point. 

The  parish  of  Knaith,  which  to-day  has  few  more  than 
a  hundred  inhabitants,  consists  of  a  few  scattered  houses 
and  farms  lying  upon  the  fifteen  hundred  acres  or  so  which 
Domesday  assigns  to  it,  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Trent, 
fourteen  miles  north-west  of  Lincoln  and  three  miles  south 
of  Gainsborough.  In  a  bend  of  the  river  whose  meadows 
slope  pleasantly  back  to  the  low  heights  above  it  on  the 
east,  lies  the  modern  half-timbered  house  known  as  Knaith 
Hall,  which  adjoins  the  parish  church.  The  tradition  at 
Knaith  makes  the  Hall  the  place  of  Thomas  Sutton's  birth. 
But  here,  with  every  wish  to  localise  the  spot  where  our 
Founder  first  saw  daylight,  we  find  a  difficulty.  For 
Knaith  Hall  is  quite  undoubtedly  built  upon  and  out  of 
the  ruins  of  the  Priory  of  Heynings,  whose  walls  may  be 
traced  both  in  the  house  itself  and  in  the  foundations 
visible  in  the  grounds.  Heynings  Priory  was  a  house  of 
Cistercian  nuns,  founded  probably  in  the  reign  of  Stephen, 
as  a  double  house  for  Canons  and  Nuns,  though  the  Canons 
are  never  heard  of  again  after  the  original  charter.  The 
Priory — one  of  the  many  similar  houses  which  were  haunted 
by  poverty  and  inefficiency  all  along  the  line  of  their 
existence — was  spared  at  the  dissolution  of  1536,  and  three 
years  later,  in  1539  surrendered  to  the  Crown  when  Joan, 
the  last  Prioress,  with  eleven  Nuns,  who  had  enjoyed  an 
income  of  just  under  fifty  pounds,  went  out  into  the  world 
with  pensions.  It  is  quite  obvious,  therefore,  that  Knaith 
Hall,  which  afterwards  rose  upon  the  ruins  of  Heynings 
Priory,  could  not  have  been  the  birthplace  of  our  Founder 
in  1532.  It  is,  however,  not  improbable  that  there  was  an 


172  THOMAS   SUTTON 

older  Knaith  Hall — it  seems,  as  I  have  said,  that  the 
Darcys  would  surely  have  had  a  house  to  their  property 
which  has  disappeared,  and  this  may  have  been  near  to 
the  site  of  the  Priory.  More  than  this  we  cannot  safely 
say. 

But  the  parish  church,  a  very  interesting  building,  was 
certainly  there  in  Sutton's  youthful  days.  It  is  within  a 
stone's  throw  of  Knaith  Hall  and  was  the  church  of  the 
Priory.  It  has  been  questioned  whether  there  was  not  an 
earlier  parish  church  which  was  destroyed,  the  present 
church  being  substituted.  I  can  see  no  reason  to  think 
this.  The  church  has  been  much  larger  than  it  now  is, 
the  choir,  which  seems  to  have  been  larger  than  the  present 
nave,  having  been  destroyed.*  It  is  evident  that  a  church 
of  such  a  size,  built  in  the  fourteenth  century,  could  not 
have  been  needed  for  the  sole  use  of  a  priory  which  at  no 
time  contained  more  than  a  dozen  nuns.  It  may  safely 
be  concluded  that  Knaith  Church  was  the  parish  church 
to  which  the  nuns  had  access,  being  doubtless  secluded 
from  the  congregation,  as  is  so  often  the  case.  And  this 
view  is,  perhaps,  strengthened  by  the  presence  in  the 
church  of  a  fine  font  of  fourteenth  or  early  fifteenth 
century  date — though  this,  it  must  be  admitted,  might 
have  been  transferred  hither  if  another  parish  church 
really  existed.  This  font,  however,  we  may  feel  sure,  was 
that  at  which  our  Founder  was  held,  whether  in  this  church 
or  another,  in  the  year  1532. 

We  have  no  means  of  knowing  how  much  of  Thomas 
Sutton's  boyhood  was  spent  in  the  pleasant  fields  of 
Knaith.  He  was  a  child  of  five  when  the  Pilgrimage  of 
Grace  filled  the  countryside  with  armed  peasants  and 
soldiers,  and,  a  year  later  still,  weighted  the  gibbets  with 
the  corpses  of  the  unhappy  rebels.  It  was  the  first  glimpse 
to  the  child  of  the  profession  which  he  was  to  follow. 
Tradition  says  that  he  was  sent  to  Eton  at  the  advice  of 
Dr.  Cox,  the  Headmaster.  The  fact  that  Sutton  left  a 
legacy  to  the  daughters  of  Dr.  Cox  is  somewhat  in  favour 

*  There  is  evidence  that  in  Tudor  days  the  population  of  Knaith 
was  greater  than  it  is  to-day. 


CAMBRIDGE,    LINCOLN'S   INN  173 

of  the  view.  Thence,  it  is  said,  he  went  to  Cambridge, 
where  St.  John's,  Magdalen,  and  Jesus  Colleges  have  at 
times  laid  claim  to  him.  Philip  Bearcroft  was  at  some 
pains  to  examine  these  claims,  and  he  printed  the  letters 
received  in  evidence  from  these  colleges.  Sutton's  name  is 
not  found  on  the  books  of  Magdalen  or  Jesus  College,  and 
the  claim  probably  arose  from  the  fact  that  he  left  legacies 
to  each.  But  at  St.  John's — to  which  he  left  no  legacy, 
however — is  found  the  name,  at  a  suitable  time,  of  one 
Thomas  Sutton,  a  "  quadrantarius  "  or  Sizar.  But  this 
can  hardly  be  our  Founder,  his  circumstances  having 
been  such  as  to  make  it  most  unlikely  that  he  would  have 
been  entered  to  a  position  which,  in  those  days,  was  one 
surrounded  by  painful  and  even  menial  conditions.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  the  name  of  Sutton — owing  to 
the  large  number  of  places  called  Sutton  in  England — was 
common  then  and  now. 

It  may,  however,  be  taken  as  certain  that  he  was  at 
Lincoln's  Inn  ;  and,  after  that,  he  is  said  to  have  travelled 
for  some  time  abroad.  That  is  very  probable,  though  the 
fact  that  the  mendacious  but  unfaltering  Herne  gives  us 
the  exact  periods  spent  in  various  countries — two  years  in 
Holland,  two  years  in  Italy,  two  years  in  France,  two 
years  in  Spain — disturbs,  perhaps  unreasonably,  our 
confidence.  We  find  ourselves  on  safer  ground  when,  in 
1558,  his  father,  Richard  Sutton,  makes  a  nuncupative  will 
in  which  he  leaves  to  his  son  the  lease  of  the  Manor  of 
Cockerington  *  in  Lincolnshire,  together  with  half  the 
residue  of  his  other  property,  the  other  half  going  to  his 
wife,  Elizabeth  Sutton,  the  Founder's  mother.  She  was 
the  daughter  of  Sir  Brian  Stapleton  (or  Stapylton)  of  the 
ancient  Yorkshire  family  which,  in  an  earlier  century,  had 
produced  Sir  Brian  Stapleton,  the  great  soldier  of  his  day. 

Bearcroft  in  his  history,  quoting  from  the  Herologia 
Anglica,  tells  us  that  Sutton  was  private  secretary  to 
Ambrose  Dudley  (Lord  Warwick),  to  Robert  Dudley 

*  It  is  not  said  whether  this  is  North  Cockerington  or  South. 
They  lie  close  together  near  Louth  in  Lincolnshire.  The  lease  is 
said  to  have  been  valuable. 

N 


174  THOMAS  SUTTON 

(Leicester),  and  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk.  It  is  most  un- 
likely that  he  should  have  acted  in  that  capacity  to  all  the 
three,  and  so  far  as  concerns  Robert  Dudley  we  may,  with 
some  safety,  dismiss  the  suggestion  since  his  life  and  that 
of  Sutton  give  us  no  points  of  contact  in  their  early  period 
at  least.  But  in  the  case  of  Warwick  and  Norfolk  it  is 
quite  within  the  fitness  of  things  that  Sutton  may  have 
acted  as  military  secretary  to  either  of  these  noblemen,  as 
I  shall  presently  show,  in  his  profession  as  a  soldier  at 
Berwick  and  in  the  North. 

In  1558,  the  first  year  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  we  find  that 
Captain  Sutton — there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  this  was 
our  Founder — drew  pay  in  the  garrison  of  Berwick-on- 
Tweed  of  four  shillings  a  day,  having  a  company  under  him 
consisting  of  a  petty  captain,  an  ensign  bearer,  a  sergeant, 
a  drum,  forty-six  soldiers,  and  fifty-four  harquebusiers. 
It  was  a  critical  hour  for  England,  and  no  better  time  or 
place  could  have  been  chosen  in  which  to  learn  the  duties 
of  an  officer.  It  is  however  evident,  from  his  receiving  a 
commission  as  a  full  captain,  that  he  had  already  seen 
service  and  had  experience  either  at  home  or  abroad. 

England  was  in  fear,  and  not  without  reason,  of  an 
attack  from  France  by  way  of  Scotland.  The  reigns  of 
Mary  and  Edward  and  the  latter  part  of  Henry  VIII  had 
left  the  defences  of  the  country  in  parlous  condition. 
In  all  the  dockyards  and  arsenals  of  England  there  were 
less  than  thirty  cannon  or  demi-cannon  in  store.  Cecil,  in 
feverish  haste,  set  about  renewing  the  decayed  ramparts 
of  Berwick,  the  key  of  the  approach  to  England  from  the 
north.  He  wrote  two  years  later  to  Elizabeth  imploring 
her  to  put  aside  her  will-o'-the-wisp  vision,  the  recovery  of 
Calais  :  "  neither  is  Portsmouth,  your  own  haven,  fortified, 
neither  the  town  of  Berwick — most  necessary  of  all  others 
— finished."  Before  the  end  of  1559  it  became  clear  that 
it  had  been  no  vain  fear  from  which  the  nation  had  suffered. 
In  the  last  month  of  that  year  the  defenders  of  Berwick  saw 
a  squadron  of  fifteen  French  ships  run  by  in  sight  of  the 
ramparts  to  discharge,  a  day  or  two  later  at  Leith,  soldiers 


AT   BERWICK  175 

and  guns  for  the  nominal  support  of  the  dying  Mary  of 
Guise,  Queen  Mary's  mother,  against  her  rebellious  Scots. 
Cecil  knew  well  the  true  purpose,  which  might  indeed  have 
been  accomplished  if  the  second  squadron  under  Elboeuf 
had  not  found  its  billet  where  a  later  Armada  found  it  also, 
on  the  shores  and  flats  of  the  Netherlands. 

Meanwhile,  in  August,  1559,  Captain  Sutton  being 
still  of  the  garrison  who  were  working  hard  at  the  defences, 
came  Sir  Ralph  Sadler,  a  seasoned  and  good  soldier,  and 
Sir  James  Crofts,  an  equally  bad  one.  And  at  length 
Norfolk,  having  been  persuaded  out  of  his  reluctance, 
came  up  to  take  the  command,  and  Berwick  perhaps 
contained  at  one  moment  two  future  owners  of  Charter- 
house. A  month  or  two  later  Sir  Ralph  Sadler  went 
forward  to  the  ill-starred  siege  of  Edinburgh,  destined  to 
end  in  the  treaty  of  Leith,  while  Norfolk  took  part  with 
the  reserves  at  Newcastle. 

Sutton  drew  pay  as  a  Captain  in  the  Berwick  garrison 
from  Dec.  1558  to  Nov.  1559.  We  cannot  suppose  that 
his  service  at  Berwick  ended  at  such  a  moment  when  every 
useful  soldier  was  needed  and  when  the  French  fleet  was 
actually  under  weigh.  There  are  two  ways  in  which  we 
may  account  for  his  ceasing  to  be  upon  the  pay  list  of  the 
garrison  of  Berwick.  The  first  is  that  he  may  have  been 
detailed  for  service  elsewhere,  at  Newcastle,  for  example, 
or  at  some  station  on  the  line  of  communications  with  the 
South.  The  other  suggestion  is  that  Norfolk  selected 
him  for  his  military  secretary,  in  which  case  he  would 
cease  naturally  to  be  on  the  garrison  pay  list.  And  if 
this  be  so,  he  would,  soon  after,  have  gone  south  with 
Norfolk  to  Newcastle.  Here,  of  course,  we  are  in  the 
region  of  inference  and  conjecture.  But  it  needs  both  to 
explain  how,  ten  years  later,  he  came,  as  we  shall  see,  to 
receive  an  appointment  which  made  him  for  life  the 
responsible  guardian  of  the  defences  of  Berwick  and  the 
North.  Cecil  was  not  the  man  to  have  put  him  there 
unless  the  events  of  the  first  two  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign 
at  Berwick  and  on  the  Border  had  brought  to  light  a  man 
of  unusual  capacity. 


176  THOMAS   SUTTON 

The  treaty  of  Leith,  signed  on  July  6,  1560,  perhaps 
set  Captain  Sutton  free  from  soldiering  for  a  while,  since 
the  post  was  not  a  permanent  one.  The  French  fleet 
sailed  away  from  Leith,  the  English  northern  army  was 
disbanded.  We  have  no  knowledge  of  Sutton's  actions 
till  the  years  1566-67,  when  we  find  him  in  the  civil  capacity 
of  Estreator  of  Lincolnshire.  It  is  not  impossible  that, 
in  the  years  between,  he  was  taking  a  practical  part  in  the 
fortification  of  Berwick,  which  was  presently  to  become, 
in  the  light  of  those  days,  an  impregnable  fortress.*  But 
in  1569,  as  has  been  already  recorded  in  dealing  with  the 
life  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  when  that  nobleman  was  sent 
to  the  Tower  the  northern  Lords  Northumberland  and 
Westmorland  raised  at  an  ill-chosen  moment  their  standard 
of  rebellion.  The  two  Lords  were  unfit  for  any  enterprise 
that  needed  a  bold  stroke — it  might  have  been  different  if 
Northumberland's  Countess  could  have  taken  the  com- 
mand. Sussex,  a  dull  but  honest  commander,  held  York 
for  the  Queen — it  might  have  fallen  to  a  rapid  assault 
while  the  Lords  hung  about  Durham,  held  processions  and 
cathedral  services,  and  did  nothing.  Lord  Clinton,  passing 
through  Lincolnshire  to  recruit  (where  perhaps  Captain 
Thomas  Sutton  joined  him),  was  given  time  to  reach 
Warwick's  little  force  at  Wetherby  on  Dec.  13,  1569. 
This  was  the  force,  to  whichever  division  he  belonged, 
with  which  Sutton  served.  It  was  no  campaign  to  be 
greatly  proud  of.  The  wretched  fragments  of  what  a  few 
weeks  before  had  been  a  mighty  and  alarming  host,  ran  for 
their  lives  from  Durham,  in  forlorn  companies  of  a  score 
or  two  together.  A  letter  from  Captain  Thomas  Sutton, 
now  in  the  Record  Office,  dated  Dec.  18  and  written  from 
Darlington,  describes  the  poor  rebel-hunt  to  Hexham 
across  the  snow-swept  moors.  Then  came  the  hanging 
and  the  quartering  with  Sir  Edward  Horsey,  himself  an 
arch  gallows  man,  as  chief  executioner,  and  the  rising  of 
the  North  was  at  an  end. 

Here,  of  course,  we  find  Thomas  Sutton  brought  into 

*  The  defences  are  still  to  be  seen  in  great  completeness. 


SUTTON   MASTER   OF   ORDNANCE          177 

close  and  necessary  contact  with  Ambrose  Dudley,  Earl 
of  Warwick,  and  perhaps  we  may  recognise  here  the 
opportunity  which  the  tradition  requires  for  Sutton  to 
have  acted,  in  the  re-settlement  which  followed  the  military 
advance,  or  even  went  before  it,  as  secretary  to  Warwick. 
We  have  already  noticed  that  there  was  a  supposed 
kinship  between  the  families  of  Sutton  and  Dudley. 
There  seems  also  to  have  been  some  service  on  Sutton's 
part,  for  there  is  a  deed  of  Nov.  12, 1569,  by  which  Ambrose 
Earl  of  Warwick  and  his  wife,  the  Lady  Anne,  granted  to 
their  well-beloved  servant,  Thomas  Sutton,  for  life  an 
annuity  of  £3  Is.  8d.  out  of  the  Manor  of  Walkington  in 
Yorkshire,  and  a  little  later  the  lease  of  that  manor  for 
twenty-one  years  at  £26  the  year.  This  grant  is  very 
suggestive.  And  a  few  months  later,  on  Feb.  28,  1570, 
we  find  Sutton  appointed — it  is  said  on  the  suggestion  of 
Warwick — as  Master-General  and  Surveyor  of  Ordnance  to 
the  Queen  in  Berwick  and  the  North  of  England  for  life, 
his  salary  to  be  counted  from  the  previous  Lady  Day. 

The  office  which  Sutton  was  to  hold  for  the  next  twenty- 
five  years  of  his  life  was  the  most  important  of  the  per- 
manent military  posts  of  that  day.  In  the  absence  of  a 
standing  army  the  efficiency  of  the  Masters  of  Ordnance 
for  the  various  districts  of  England  was  the  sole  guarantee, 
in  the  intervals  of  peace,  for  the  maintenance  of  the  defences 
of  the  country.  And  amongst  these  no  district  was  of 
greater  moment  to  the  safety  of  England  than  that  which 
was  now  entrusted  to  Sutton. 

We  have  seen  how  Cecil  spoke  of  it  to  the  Queen  as 
"  the  most  necessary  of  all  "  even  with  Portsmouth  in  his 
thoughts.  The  duties  of  a  Master-General  and  Surveyor 
of  Ordnance  involved  the  work  of  a  modern  Artillery 
officer  and  Royal  Engineer  in  one,  and  in  a  district  which 
included  such  towns  as  Alnwick  and  Newcastle,  Hexham, 
Durham,  and  Wearmouth,  Sutton  must,  in  the  early  years 
of  his  office,  have  had  his  hands  full,  and  must  have  spent 
a  great  deal  of  his  time  in  his  district.  But  after  the 
completion  of  the  fortifications  of  these  parts,  especially 
after  1793,  when  the  fall  of  Edinburgh  Castle  ended  the 


178  THOMAS   SUTTON 

last  military  venture  in  the  North  of  Mary  Stuart's  party, 
the  result  gave  more  breathing  time  to  the  Surveyor,  and 
after  1580  he  found  it  possible  to  live,  as  we  shall  see,  near 
London,  an  occasional,  or  possibly  annual,  inspection 
proving  sufficient  if  no  immediate  danger  pressed. 

It  was  in  1573,  four  years  after  his  appointment,  that 
his  work  was  first  put  to  a  successful  test.  Mary  Stuart's 
son  James  having  been  accepted  as  King,  his  mother's 
crimson  flag  now  flew  over  but  one  remaining  spot  in 
Scotland,  the  Castle  Rock  of  Edinburgh.  Here  Maitland 
and  Grange,  Melville  and  Hume,  with  a  garrison  of  a 
hundred  and  forty-seven  men,  with  forty-five  women  and 
children,  held  out  for  the  lost  cause  of  their  mistress  against 
Killigrew  and  the  regent  Morton,  who  could  make  no 
impression  on  the  mighty  rock  and  its  stubborn  defenders. 

Morton,  after  poisoning  the  only  good  well  by  the 
Castle  gate,  appealed  to  the  English  Queen  for  an  army. 
Elizabeth,  "  semper  eadem,"  haggled  for  a  month  or  two 
about  the  price,  and  then,  the  situation  becoming  acute, 
sent  troops  from  Berwick  under  Sir  William  Drury,  who 
arrived  on  April  17.  Meanwhile  the  heavy  guns  with  which 
Berwick  had  been  supplied  were  brought  round  by  sea  to 
Leith,  where  they  arrived  on  April  25.  It  is  obvious  that 
Thomas  Sutton  as  Master  of  the  Ordnance  must  have  been 
in  charge  of  this  operation.  The  guns  having  been  duly 
dragged  to  the  scene  of  action  were  divided  into  five 
batteries,  one  at  the  head  of  the  High  Street  commanding 
the  main  Castle  approach,  another  to  the  south  near  the 
Grassmarket,  two  others  to  the  north  and  west,  and  one 
in  the  middle  of  Prince's  Street.  Sutton  was  in  command 
of  one  of  these — we  cannot  say  which.  By  the  middle  of 
May  most  of  the  batteries  were  complete,  but  the  great 
bombardment  began  on  the  twenty-second  and  lasted  till 
the  twenty-seventh  of  that  month.  The  like  of  it  had 
never  been  known  before  in  any  siege  of  history — no  less 
than  3000  balls  being  discharged  against  the  Castle,  and 
answered  by  Mons  Meg  and  her  marrows  with  strangely 
little  carnage  on  either  side,  for  the  besieging  batteries 


EDINBURGH,    GATESHEAD  179 

were  firing  at  an  elevation  which  made  serious  damage 
very  difficult,  while  as  for  Mons  Meg,  though  her  "  random," 
in  the  expressive  phrase  of  the  day,  was  from  the  Rock  to 
Leith  harbour,  yet  she  found  it  hard  to  throw  her  huge 
stone  balls  (the  residue  of  her  stock  may  still  be  seen  on 
the  platform  from  which  the  quaint  old  monster  to-day 
looks  out  over  Edinburgh)  down  into  the  English  batteries 
below.  The  poisoned  well,  the  famine,  the  exhaustion 
of  the  heroic  little  band,  with  the  certainty  that  at  any 
moment  a  breach  might  be  made  and  the  place  carried  by 
assault,  brought  an  end  to  the  endurance  of  the  Castle 
defenders,  who  were  allowed  to  march  out,  all  save  the 
four  leaders,  under  amnesty.  Mons  Meg  was  once  more 
silent  on  her  platform,  the  guns  of  Berwick  were  returned 
to  their  ramparts,  and  so  far  as  we  know  our  Founder 
never  again  heard  a  shot  fired  in  anger. 

It  was  not,  however,  as  Master  of  Ordnance  that  Sutton 
was  to  prove  his  great  practical  capacity.  His  position  as 
Surveyor  naturally  made  him  familiar  with  the  whole  of 
that  coal-bearing  district.  He  had,  besides  his  professional 
salary,  some  little  fortune  from  his  father.  It  has  been 
claimed  for  Sutton  by  some  writers  that  he  became  the 
pioneer  of  mining  in  the  coalfields  of  Durham.  This  is 
merely  one  more  of  the  exaggerations  which  cling  about 
his  name.  For  coal  had  been  won  there  in  primitive 
fashion,  no  doubt,  for  many  a  century,  and  in  the  centuries 
preceding  Sutton's,  the  industry  had  flourished.  What 
Sutton  really  did  was  to  see  the  value  of  that  industry 
and  to  invest  his  savings  in  the  purchase  of  a  lease  from 
the  Bishop  of  Durham,  between  1569  and  1580,  of  the 
Manors  of  Gateshead  and  Wickham  for  seventy  years. 
Here,  again,  his  position  has  been  misstated.  The 
Victorian  County  History  speaks  of  him  as  the  "  shrewd 
financier  "  who  apppeared  on  the  scene  at  the  moment 
when  the  industry  needed  him.  But  at  the  moment  when 
Sutton,  shrewdly  enough,  obtained  his  lease,  he  was  not 
to  be  called  as  yet  a  financier,  merely  a  wise  investor  of 
his  small  capital.  It  was  out  of  that  very  investment  that 
he  was  to  gain  the  wealth  which  should  justify  the  name  of 


180  THOMAS   SUTTON 

financier.  The  demand  for  coal  was  now  great  and  in- 
creasing as  the  coal-fire  became  a  matter  of  domestic 
comfort  and  thousands  of  chimneys  were  added  to  houses. 
Sutton  held  the  lease  of  Gateshead  and  Wickham  for 
some  years  and  then  transferred  it,  no  doubt  to  his  profit, 
to  the  Newcastle  merchants,  who  held  it  under  the  name  of 
"  the  Great  Lease  "  till  their  monopoly — most  unpopular 
in  London — expired  in  the  seventeenth  century.  But 
before  Sutton's  death  the  output  of  coal  which  was  shipped 
from  the  Durham  coalfields  about  Gateshead  and  Wickham 
on  the  Tyne  had  reached  a  total  of  239,261  tons.*  In 
1580  Sutton  himself  was  said  to  have  amassed  a  fortune 
of  £50,000  by  the  venture  which  his  shrewd  eye  had  com- 
mended to  him. 

In  that  same  year,  having  probably  passed  on  his 
lease,  he  came  south  with  his  fortune,  living,  it  would 
seem,  at  Hackney — he  certainly  did  so  in  his  later  life — 
but  not  in  London  itself.  He  never  became  a  freeman 
or  citizen  of  London  ;  and  in  a  list  of  persons  of  note  "  not 
citizens  of  London,"  we  find  his  name  entered  for  the 
ward  of  Farringdon  Within  as  of  Islington  (this  was  after 
his  marriage)  he  having  a  room,  doubtless  for  business 
purposes,  when  he  rode  into  London,  near  "  the  nether  end  " 
of  St.  Dunstan's  in  Fleet  Street.  Hackney  was  in  that 
day  a  pleasant  village  separated  from  London  by  several 
miles  of  green  field,  much  in  request  for  the  houses  of  the 
great,  and  sought  after  by  Elizabeth  herself  in  her  daily 
rides. 

The  village  of  Stoke  Newington  close  by  was  another 
pleasant  place  of  similar  type,  and  here  in  1582  (Sept.  17) 
Sutton,  described  in  the  licence  as  of  Littlebury  in  Essex, 
where  he  had  just  bought  an  estate,  was  married  to  Eliza- 
beth Dudley,  widow  of  Sir  John  Dudley,  f  She  brought  him 
again  much  wealth  which,  added  to  his  previous  fortune, 
made  him  by  common  report,  perhaps  incorrect,  the  richest 
commoner  in  the  land.  His  wife  had  only  a  life  interest 

*  In  1905  it  was  37,397,196  tons. 

t  Elizabeth  Dudley  was  daughter  of  John  Gardiner  of  Grove 
House,  Chalfont  St.  Giles,  Bucks. 


QUEEN   ELIZABETH   AT   BUTTON'S   HOME  181 

in  the  house  at  Stoke  Newington,  which  passed  at  her 
death  to  her  daughter,  Anne  Dudley,  who  presently 
married  Francis  Popham,  son  of  Sir  John  Popham,  Lord 
Chief  Justice,  and  was  none  too  happy  in  her  match. 
Queen  Elizabeth  visited  them  at  their  home  and  seems  to 
have  taken  much  notice  of  the  daughter,  on  one  occasion 
giving  her  a  jewel  to  wear  in  memory  of  the  visit.  For 
twenty  years,  till  the  death  of  Elizabeth  Sutton  in  1602, 
this  house  at  Stoke  Newington  was  Sutton's  London 
home.  He  was,  it  will  be  remembered,  still  Master  of  the 
Ordnance  at  Berwick,  and  must  have  often  been  away 
from  home  for  considerable  periods,  and  his  occupations, 
during  his  intervals  in  London,  have  been  made  the  subject 
of  much  imaginative  writing.  He  has  been  described  as  a 
banker,  or  more  flatly  as  a  money-lender.  There  is  no 
evidence  to  justify  the  use  of  either  name  in  their  ordinary 
sense.  But  he  was  a  rich  man  from  whom  many  other 
men  were  glad  enough  to  beg  or  borrow,  and  existing 
documents  show  that  not  a  few  persons  from  time  to  time 
owed  him  money.  The  Queen  herself  owed  him  £100,  and 
noblemen  and  commoners  followed  the  Royal  example 
and  were  not  above  making  use  of  Sutton's  wealth.  But 
in  the  understood  sense,  this  is  hardly  either  a  banking  or 
a  money-lending  business.  We  may  almost  take  it  for 
granted,  too,  that  Sutton  would  often  have  had  shares  in 
the  many  ventures,  half  national  and  half  commercial, 
which  continually  went  forth  to  the  Indies,  to  the  Guinea 
Coast,  and  to  the  Pacific  under  such  men  as  Ralegh  and 
Howard,  George  Fenner  and  Martin  Frobisher.  These 
expeditions — sailing  some  with  the  Queen's  orders,  some 
with  her  tacit  consent,  some  with  her  nominal  disapproval 
— often  carried  the  Queen's  own  shares,  and  that  of  many 
of  her  ministers,  her  nobles,  and  her  commoners.  But  it 
was,  for  obvious  reasons  of  national  convenience,  not  the 
custom  of  the  day  to  publish  a  list  of  the  shareholders.  It 
is  only  here  and  there  that  we  happen  to  know  by  accident 
that  Warwick  or  Leicester  or  Ralegh  owned  a  whole  ship 
or  so  in  a  venture.  In  the  list  of  subscribers  to  the  national 
defence  at  the  approach  of  the  Spanish  Armada  in  1588 


182  THOMAS   SUTTON 

we  find  the  name  of  Thomas  Sutton  for  the  county  of 
Essex,  with  £100 — no  larger  sum  appears  in  any  list — 
against  it. 

This  was,  of  course,  a  patriotic  list,  but  in  the  list  of 
private  venture  vessels  which  took  part  against  the  Spanish 
fleet,  we  find  recorded  the  barque  Sutton,  hailing  from 
Weymouth,  of  70  tons,  40  men,  commanded  by  Hugh 
Preston  (elsewhere  given  as  Pearson),  which  formed  a 
part  of  Effingham's  division.  It  is  believed,  and  I  share 
the  belief,  that  this  barque  belonged  to  Thomas  Sutton. 
It  has  been  urged  that  Sutton  had  no  connection  with 
Weymouth.  Such  a  connection  was  not  necessary,  since 
no  more  convenient  port  for  a  small  privateer  to  hail 
from  could  be  desired.  And,  moreover,  Sutton  certainly 
had  west  country  interests.  There  is  a  document  in 
Charterhouse  muniment  recording  a  visit  by  Thomas 
Sutton  on  horseback  when  he  was  between  seventy  and 
eighty,  to  relations  at  Bath,  and  he  left  some  twelve  farms 
near  Swindon  to  the  governors  of  his  hospital,  which  they 
still  possess  *  (1913).  But  when  we  come  to  further 
highly  picturesque  details  it  is  time  to  stop.  Thus  we  are 
told  that  Sutton  himself  commanded  this  barque,  though 
we  know  otherwise,  and  it  is  also  obvious  that  Sutton's 
post  at  such  a  moment  can  only  have  been  at  Berwick, 
on  which  a  descent  by  the  Spanish  fleet  was  quite  possible. 
Again,  we  are  told  that  this  same  barque,  apparently  during 
the  Armada  fights,  captured  and  brought  in  a  galleon 
worth  £20,000.  The  names  of  the  Spanish  prizes  are 
pretty  well  known  to  the  Navy  Records,  and  nothing  of 
the  kind  is  recorded.  It  is  to  be  said,  in  favour  of  the 
ownership  of  the  barque  by  Thomas  Sutton,  that  it  was  a 
common  custom  for  a  private  venture  ship  to  go  afloat 
under  the  name  of  her  owner.  Thus  in  the  Armada  list 
of  English  volunteers  we  find  the  galleon  Leicester  f 
(commanded  by  George  Fenner),  so  called  because  she  was 
owned  by  Robert  Dudley,  the  Drake  a  private  venture  of 
the  Admiral,  the  Bark  Buggins,  and  a  score  of  others. 

*  Since  sold. 

f  Previously  called  the  Ughircd,  after  her  owner,  Henry  Ughtred. 


THE    BARQUE   SUTTON  183 

Beyond  this  we  must  not  go,  and  we  must  be  content  to  take 
the  question  of  the  barque  Sutton  as  a  highly  engaging 
possibility. 

The  evidence  of  his  ventures  by  sea  in  this  sort  have, 
almost  of  necessity,  disappeared,  but  the  evidence  of  some 
other  of  his  investments  remain  on  the  surface  of  the  land. 
We  find  him  possessed  of  land  *  in  Lincolnshire,  at  Dunsby 
and  at  Buslingthorpe,  of  land  in  Essex  and  Cambridgeshire 
at  Ashdon  Balsham  (and  later  at  Castle  Camps),  at 
Hallingbury,  Southminster,  Stambridge,  Cold  Norton, 
Wigborough  in  Essex,  and  as  already  mentioned,  near 
Swindon  in  Wilts.  These  lands,  good  purchases  in  their 
day,  were  for  over  two  centuries  a  source  of  good  income 
to  his  Hospital,  and  to-day  have  sorely  lost  their  value 
through  causes  which  neither  Sutton  nor  any  living  person 
in  his  day  could  have  foreseen. 

In  1594  Sutton's  health  had  begun  to  fail.  He  gave  up 
in  that  year — being  then  sixty-two  years  old — his  office 
as  Master  of  the  Ordnance  at  Berwick,  a  post  which, 
with  its  long  journeys  on  horseback,  must  have  become 
a  severe  ordeal  to  him.  He  held  at  that  time  the  lease 
of  Broken  Wharf,  which  lay  a  few  hundred  yards  west 
of  Greenhithe,  on  the  north  shore  of  the  river  in  Upper 
Thames  Street  just  below  St.  Paul's.  The  name  of 
Broken  Wharf  still  survives  in  an  opening  with  landing 
and  steps  between  dismal  warehouses.  In  Sutton's  day 
there  was  a  dilapidated  dwelling  adjoining  it  which,  with 
the  wharf,  had  belonged  to  the  Bigods,  the  earlier  Norfolk 
family.  Some  writers  have  made  the  mistake  of  saying 
that  this  was  Sutton's  home  in  London,  but  during  the 
whole  of  the  period  when  he  held  the  lease  of  Broken 
Wharf  he  was,  as  we  know,  housed  at  Stoke  Newington. 
He  owned  the  wharf  probably  as  a  mere  investment  for 
the  sake  of  its  landing  fees,  and  perhaps  also  for  occasional 
use  when  some  venture  in  which  he  was  interested  came 
back  from  the  high  seas. 

*  In  1918  the  Governors  of  Charterhouse  decided  to  sell  all  their 
landed  estates.  The  farms  at  Buslingthorp  and  the  Castle  Farm 
(Sutton's  last  country  house)  at  Castle  Camps  remain. 


184  THOMAS   SUTTON 

The  map  of  about  1593  shows  an  elevation  of  the 
houses  at  the  wharf,  and  also  tells  us  that  the  Dutch 
eel  boats  which  now  have  their  permanent  moorings  off 
Billingsgate  were,  in  Button's  day,  lying  off  Broken  Wharf. 
Sutton  resigned  this  lease  in  1594,  when  the  ruined  dwelling 
was  turned  into  an  "  engine  "  for  the  water  supply  of  the 
City. 

But  what  shows  us  most  plainly  that  Sutton  was  at 
this  time  sitting  lightly  to  life  is  the  fact  that  in  1594  he 
took  precautions  to  ensure,  in  case  of  his  death,  that  his 
great  project  for  the  foundation  of  a  hospital  and  free 
school  could  not  be  frustrated.  He  assigned  to  the  Lord 
Chief  Justice,  Sir  John  Popham,  and  to  the  Master  of 
the  Rolls,  as  trustees,  his  estates  in  Essex  at  his  death, 
for  the  foundation  of  a  hospital  (i.e.  hostel)  for  old  men 
and  a  free  school  for  boys  on  his  estate  (which  is  still 
(1913)  Charterhouse  property)  at  Hallingbury  Bouchers,* 
some  few  miles  west  of  Bishop  Stortford.  The  deed 
was  made  subject  to  revoke — which,  as  we  shall  see, 
actually  took  place.  A  little  later  in  the  same  year,  1594, 
namely  on  Dec.  17,  he  made  his  will  in  which  he  left  the 
residue  of  his  estates  to  his  wife,  Elizabeth  Sutton,  with 
a  legacy  of  £2000  to  the  Queen,  "  in  recompence  of  his 
oversights,  careless  dealing,  and  forgetfulness  in  her 
service,  most  humbly  beseeching  her  to  stand  a  good  and 
gracious  lady  to  his  poor  wife."  This  bequest  of  Sutton's 
is  not  to  be  taken  as  an  evidence  of  any  real  failure  in  his 
duty  towards  his  office  as  a  soldier,  nor  was  his  wife  likely 
to  be  in  any  need  of  help  or  protection  that  should  prompt 
him  to  try  and  buy  favour  of  the  Queen.  It  was  the 
conscientious  act  of  a  man  who  was  no  courtier  at  any 
time  of  his  life,  and  who  seems  to  have  had  a  strong  sense 
of  duty.  Camden,  who  does  not  mention  Sutton's  name, 
bears  witness  incidentally  in  his  Britannia  to  the  fine 
condition  of  the  defences  of  Berwick,  raised  in  Elizabeth's 
reign,  and  kept  at  a  high  standard  of  efficiency,  well 

*  Sutton's  lands  at  Hallingbury  Bouchers  remained  till  1918 
in  the  hands  of  the  Governors.  They  were  once  seriously  considered 
as  the  site  for  the  school  at  its  removal  from  London. 


MRS.    SUTTON   AT   BALSHAM  185 

supplied  with  all  manner  of  warlike  stores.  It  is  a  very 
different  story  from  that  which  William  Cecil  had  had  to 
tell  of  it  at  the  end  of  Mary's  reign. 

But  Sutton  was  to  live  seventeen  years  longer  and  he 
seems  to  have  recovered  a  full  measure  of  vigour  both  of 
mind  and  body  during  the  later  years  of  his  life.  Elizabeth 
Sutton  after  all  was  to  die  nine  years  before  her  husband, 
in  1602.  The  marriage  had  been  a  happy  one,  if  we  may 
judge  by  the  glimpses  which  we  get  of  their  relationship 
from  the  letters  which  she  wrote  to  him.  She  possessed 
evidently  the  best  qualities  of  the  lady  housewife  of  that 
day,  and  her  interest  in  all  that  fell  to  her  care  as  such  is 
charmingly  shown  to  us.  They  seem  for  some  years 
before  her  death  to  have  used  Balsham  as  their  country 
home,  and  when  he  was  away  his  interests  were  in  good 
keeping.  One  such  letter,*  almost  the  last  she  ever  wrote, 
and  evidently  treasured  by  Sutton  amongst  his  papers,  is 
worth  quoting.  The  address  is  "To  my  lovyng  housband 
Mr  Sutton  gyve  this."  It  is  written  on  three  sides  of 
octavo  wire-woven  paper,  and  there  are  notes,  accounts, 
and  memoranda  in  the  Founder's  hand  jotted  down  here 
and  there  on  it 

"  Good  Mr  Sutton.  I  have  according  to  your  direction 
to  Edward  by  word  of  mouth  taken  order  and  sat  your 
plough  to  worke  yesterday.  God  sped  yt.  I  hayd  [had] 
goodman  Hasell's  hilpe  to  buy  your  too  horses  of  Manard 
wych  most  cost  x1.  [£10].  Edward  tels  me  it  is  worth 
xls  [405.]  more  than  you  payd  and  I  have  taken  Manerd's 
man  upon  lykyng  tell  your  coming  home  and  gyven  torn 
hart  a  lesson  too  follow  his  worke.  As  for  a  shaperd 
[shepherd]  godman  Hasell  cannot  provyd  you  of  any  as  y* 
and  he  sayth  that  you  wir  better  too  kype  thys  wyth  on 
[one]  fault  than  too  take  on  of  the  Godard  wyth  many 
fautes.  VII  ploughs  of  Hadstock  be  at  ploying  Wylloms 
Farant  Banks  Adam,  Boncher  Cundall  and  Flake  and  they 
are  told  that  if  you  cannot  agree  of  a  pryes  they  shall  be 
payd  for  the  worke  but  th  ar  [they  are]  in  good  hope  that 

*  Charterhouse  Muniment  Room.  Reproduced  in  facsimile  in 
the  Greyfriar,  1912. 


186  THOMAS   SUTTON 

you  wyll  be  good  to  them  as  I  trust  in  God  you  wyll.  I 
did  hear  that  they  would  be  glad  to  give  Vs  an  akar  on 
wyth  another  of  yield  but  ground  [sic]  and  truly  Mr 
Sutton  God  will  bless  you  yf  you  will  let  the  pore  tenantry 
have  yit  of  a  resunaball  rent  that  they  may  gave  yit  y  our 
thrashers  had  down  all  your  barley  and  would  know  your 
plesur  yf  they  shall  go  in  hand  with  your  pease  wheat 
and  rye.  Also  Edward  would  know  your  plesur  what 
shall  be  down  wyth  the  shepe  that  be  at  Pettytes  he  hath 
spoken  three  tymes  to  hym  too  feeche  them  awaye  hee 
hayth  no  fedying  for  them.  Your  ewes  have  been  carryd 
to  the  pastur.  Soe  praying  God  to  bless  you  both  and 
send  yourself  well  too  mee.  From  Balsham  this  VI  of  May. 

Your  loving  obedient  wife, 

ELIZABETH  SUTTON. 

"  Wylam  and  parsevall  went  thusday  to  Mr.  Maryet 
and  they  payd  for  malt  iis  viii<l  and  for  resonabell  wheat 
vs  vi(l  rye  at  iiii  and  yt  ys  though[t]  that  corn  will  ryes 
therefore  yf  yt  plese  you  yt  wer  good  that  your  wheat  and 
rye  were  kept  for  your  one  youse  [use]  I  pray  you  Syngnyfy 
your  plesur  yf  parsevall  shall  make  any  provycyon  for 
malt." 

The  death  of  Mrs.  Sutton  cannot  but  have  brought  a 
great  change  into  Sutton's  life.  Her  life  interest  in  the 
house  at  Stoke  Newington  passed  to  her  married  daughter, 
the  Lady  Anne  Popham,  and  Sutton  seems  to  have  returned 
to  Hackney,  perhaps  to  the  house  which  he  had  occupied 
before  his  marriage  twenty  years  back.  He  owned  several 
houses  there  and  in  one  of  these  he  eventually  died.*  His 
life  must  have  now  become  very  solitary.  He  was  an  only 
son,  so  far  as  we  know,  and  was  himself  also  childless,  and 
we  do  not  hear  of  any  close  relations  except  a  cousin, 
Richard  Sutton,  and  his  nephew,  Simon  Baxter.  And  he 
had  reached  the  age  when  most  of  the  friends  and  com- 
panions of  a  man's  youth  have,  naturally,  gone  from  his 

*  These  houses,  called  Sutton  Row,  are  still  the  property  of 
Charterhouse.  They  are  near  St.  John's  Church,  Hackney,  and 
adjoin  St.  John's  Church  Institute,  an  extremely  fine  old  house 
which  retains  many  of  its  sixteenth  century  features.  The  house 
in  which  the  Founder  died  no  longer  exists. 


LADY   DE    MANNY    (MARGARET   MARESCHALL). 


KONUMENT    OF   ELIZABETH    BUTTON   (STOKE    NEWINGTON). 


OLD    AGE  187 

side.  He  is  said  to  have  much  reduced  his  household  and 
scale  of  living,  clinging  more  closely  than  ever  to  the  thought 
of  his  future  foundation.  He  suffered  not  a  little  from  the 
importunities  of  those  who  knew  him  for  a  man  of  wealth 
and  childless.  The  collection  of  begging  letters  which  were 
found  amongst  his  papers — neither  more  nor  less  numerous 
than  is  usual  in  such  cases — do  not  make  pleasant  reading. 
Impecunious  members  of  noble  families,  ladies,  beggars  in 
the  guise  of  well-wishers  to  his  soul,  beggars  without 
disguise,  one  and  all  closed  in  upon  him — as  vultures 
waiting  for  the  prey.  It  was  well  for  Sutton's  ease  of  mind 
that  his  fortune  was  already  ear-marked  for  a  great 
purpose,  and  it  was  well  also  that  his  shrewdness  and 
straightness  of  vision  enabled  him  to  avoid  those  traps 
which  are  set  in  vain  in  the  sight  of  any  bird.  Sir  John 
Harrington,  the  wit  and  man  of  letters,  whose  own  baseness 
of  character  made  him  a  bad  judge  of  a  man  like  Sutton, 
sought  to  pander  to  a  trait  which  he  knew  to  exist  in 
himself  and  had  so  often  found  in  other  men.  He  went 
about,  without  consulting  Sutton,  to  open  a  bargain  by 
which  the  old  soldier  was  to  leave  all  his  money  to  the 
Duke  of  York  (Charles  I)  in  return  for  a  peerage.  He  little 
knew  his  man,  and  he  professed  a  surprise  which  was 
probably  genuine  on  hearing  of  a  letter  from  Sutton  to  the 
Lord  Chancellor,  which  is  almost  fierce  in  its  scorn  of  the 
lettered  time-server's  sycophancy.  He  had  never  at  any 
time  of  his  life,  he  says,  suffered  from  any  such  ambitions, 
nor  would  he  hear  of  that  or  any  such  bargain.  It  would 
perhaps  have  been  well  if  he  had  always  kept  the  man 
and  others  like  him  at  a  full  arm's  length.  But  he  had  on 
some  occasion  lent  £3000  to  Sir  John  Skinner,  a  man 
bankrupt  alike  of  money  and  principle,  who  owned  Castle 
Camps,  in  Cambridgeshire,  which  he  wanted  to  turn  into 
ready  money. 

As  the  only  means  of  recovering  the  debt  which  Skinner 
owed  him,  and  perhaps  also  because  it  was  close  to  his 
lands  at  Balsham,  he  paid  £10,800  to  Sir  John  Skinner  for 
this  property  in  1607.  It  reads  to-day  as  if  he  had  given 
very  full  value  for  it.  But  be  this  how  it  may  the  deal 


188  THOMAS   SUTTON 

was  destined  to  bring  him  sore  trouble.  Sir  John  Harrington 
had  furthered  it  by  every  means  in  his  power,  having  every- 
thing to  gain  by  it,  since  Skinner  owed  him  also  £3000. 
Sutton,  apparently  from  the  determination  not  to  be  left 
in  the  lurch,  and  having  some  suspicion  perhaps  of  queer 
dealings  in  the  background,  postponed  the  payment  of  the 
purchase  money  until  a  drastic  letter  from  the  Master  of 
the  Rolls,  Lord  Ellesmere — which  could  not  have  been 
pleasant  for  a  man  in  his  position  to  receive — hurried  him 
to  a  completion  of  the  payment  to  Skinner,  then  in  the 
Fleet  Prison.  But  the  episode  caused  Sutton  no  small 
discomfort. 

The  same  Sir  John  Harrington,  little  likely  to  take 
offence  while  there  still  seemed  to  be  money  to  be  had,  in 
the  September  of  the  next  year,  1608,  was  writing  letters 
to  Sutton  to  beg  for  gifts  towards  "  his  church,"  i.e.  the 
Abbey  at  Bath.  He  puts  his  lodging  at  Bath  at  his 
disposal  and  strongly  recommends  to  him  the  use  of  the 
Bath  waters  for  his  ailments.  Since,  however,  we  find 
Sutton  in  these  years  able  to  undertake  the  long  journey 
on  horseback  to  Bath  for  other  purposes,  we  may  conclude 
that  his  ailment,  at  seventy-seven  years  old,  was  mainly 
the  weariness  of  old  age.  Whether  he  put  the  Bath 
waters  on  their  trial  or  no  we  do  not  know.  In  1609  he 
made  sure  of  the  future  of  his  great  plan  by  obtaining  an 
Act  of  Parliament  for  the  establishing  of  his  Foundation  at 
Hallingbury  Bouchers,  according  to  his  provisional  deed 
of  gift  of  1594.  This  site  was  by  no  means  ideal  for  the 
purpose,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  long  interval 
which  passed  between  the  deed  of  gift  and  the  Act  of 
Parliament — fifteen  years — was  due  to  the  fact  that 
Sutton  was  not  entirely  satisfied  with  it,  and  was  hoping 
to  find  a  better.  But  now,  in  1609,  being  close  upon  eighty 
years  old,  he  found  it  unsafe  to  postpone  the  settlement  of 
his  Foundation  any  longer.  Had  he  died  in  that  same 
year  the  Hospital  and  school  would  have  been  founded  in 
Essex  and  history  would  have  run  on  different  lines.  But 
it  chanced  that  Thomas  Howard,^Earl  of  Suffolk,  owner 
of  Charterhouse,  was  at  this  time,^as  has  already  been 


THE   PURCHASE   OF   CHARTERHOUSE      189 

told,  engaged  in  building,  or  rather  remodelling,  the 
Mansion  of  Audley  End — and  with  this  great  strain  upon 
his  purse,  and  perhaps  with  no  great  affection  for  the 
London  Mansion,  he  was  ready  to  part  with  Howard 
House. 

Sutton,  recognising  doubtless  that  here  at  last  was  an 
ideal  site,  agreed  on  May  9,  1911,  to  pay  Suffolk  £13,000 
for  the  site,  with  Pardon  Churchyard  and  Whitwell  Beech 
— a  large  sum  in  those  days,  though  it  would  be  ridiculously 
small  in  these.  It  will  be  remembered  that  in  1565 
Suffolk's  father,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  had  paid  to  Lord 
North  for  the  same  estate  £2500.  And  since  the  forty-five 
years  which  had  passed  between  the  two  sales  had  not 
brought  with  them  any  abnormal  decrease  in  the  purchasing 
power  of  money,  such  as  this  would  represent,  we  are  able 
to  see  in  it  an  evidence  of  the  great  outlay  which  had  been 
made  upon  the  Mansion  by  the  Howards. 

We  have  no  details  of  the  course  of  the  negotiations. 
We  do  not  know  whether  Sutton  approached  the  Admiral 
or  the  Admiral  Sutton.  But  it  is  easy  for  us  to  realise 
that  the  two  men  were  in  close  touch  enough  to  make 
dealings  easy  and  rapid.  They  must  have  been  well 
acquainted.  Without  calling  in  the  probable  or  possible 
connection  of  Sutton  with  Suffolk's  father  (Norfolk),  we 
may  feel  sure  that  the  two  men  must  have  been  many 
times  brought  together,  not  only  on  questions  of  national 
defence,  but  also,  and  more  often,  where  the  question  of 
financing  some  venture  was  in  hand.  And  they  must  have 
had  a  sympathy  in  common  with  the  main  purposes  of  the 
Foundation,  namely,  the  providing  of  rest  and  comfort  for 
the  old  age  of  those  who  had  served  and  saved  England  by 
sea  and  land.  Apart  from  the  fact  that  Suffolk  needed 
money  in  some  haste,  we  may  believe  that  he  found  honest 
pleasure  in  forwarding  a  scheme  which  was  to  aid  men 
who  had  been  his  comrades.  He  was  still  in  favour  with 
James,  and  the  speed  with  which  the  letters  patent  were 
obtained  was  probably  due  to  his  influence.  They  were 
granted  on  June  22,  and  by  them  Sutton  was  permitted  to 
found  the  Hospital  and  Free  School  in  Charterhouse,  the 

o 


190  THOMAS   SUTTON 

provisional  deed  of  gift  by  which  it  was  to  have  been 
founded  at  Hallingbury  being  of  course  revoked. 

It  was  characteristic  of  Sutton,  cautious  and  business- 
like to  the  last,  that  he  did  not  pay  the  whole  of  the 
purchase-money  till  these  letters  patent  had  been  obtained 
— a  method  which  had  the  double  effect  of  making  his 
purpose  secure  and  hastening  formalities  to  their  com- 
pletion. Suffolk  had  meanwhile,  by  a  letter  of  May  25, 
had  to  pray  for  the  advance  of  £1050,  giving  a  promise  to 
take  means  for  the  "  despatching  of  your  Charter  from  the 
King."  The  actual  law  formalities  completing  the  deed 
of  gift  were  at  an  end  by  November,  and  the  Hospital  of 
King  James,  founded  at  the  sole  cost  and  humble  petition 
of  Thomas  Sutton,  Esquire,  had  its  legal  beginning. 

Sutton  seems  at  once  to  have  set  about  the  preparations 
for  his  Hospital.  In  October  he  nominated  the  first 
Master,  John  Hutton,  rector  of  his  old  parish  of  Littlebury 
in  Essex.  Percy  Burrell,  in  his  funeral  sermon  preached 
on  Founder's  Day,  Dec.  12,  1614,  says  that  he  had  it  from 
a  good  authority  still  living  that  Sutton  had  intended  to 
be  himself  the  first  Master,  but  that  he  set  aside  the  thought 
in  presence  of  his  increasing  weakness.  On  Nov.  2,  the 
day  after  the  deed  of  gift  had  been  signed,  he  made  his 
will.  It  is  a  document  of  such  length  that  I  have  thought 
it  best  to  use  it  as  an  Appendix,  merely  mentioning  some 
special  points  within  it.  It  contains  many  legacies, 
amounting  in  all  to  over  £12,000.  We  have  memories  of 
his  soldiering  days  in  a  legacy  to  the  children  of  an  old 
gunner  of  Berwick,  Henry  Tully  ;  and  an  echo  perhaps  of 
the  northern  rebellion  time  in  one  to  a  servant  of  Lord 
Warwick,  living  in  Yorkshire.  Very  interesting,  too,  is  a 
bequest  of  £100  to  fishermen  of  Ostend.  It  seems  from  a 
note  in  the  earlier  will  that,  about  the  year  1574,  Sutton  had 
bought  at  Newcastle  two  boat-loads  of  salt  fish  and 
provisions  which  had  been  brought  in  as  prizes  by  "  the 
Captains  of  the  Prince  of  Orange."  We  have  to  conjecture 
that  these  ply-boats  were  conveying  provisions  to  the 
Spaniards  and  were  seized  as  prizes.  It  was  the  year  of 
the  siege  of  Leiden.  Incidentally  the  fact  is  interesting  as 


THE    FOUNDER'S   WILL  191 

suggesting  that  Sutton,  after  the  siege  of  Edinburgh,  was 
still  in  the  North.  It  is  clear  that  he  had  been  ill  at  ease 
from  the  memory  of  this  quite  lawful  purchase,  which  never- 
theless inflicted  loss  on  poor  men  quite  unknown  to  him. 
We  find  legacies  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  of  Berwick, 
Lincoln,  Beverley,  and  of  nearly  all  the  places  where  he  had 
property — Hackney,  Castle  Camps,  Balsham,  Littlebury, 
Ashdon,  Hadstock,  Dunsby  (in  Lincolnshire),  Elcomb 
(in  Wilts.),  and  Little  Hallingbury.  A  bell  is  given  to  the 
steeple  of  Balsham,  but  no  mention  is  made  in  any  shape 
of  Knaith,  which  seems  to  confirm  the  idea  that  the  con- 
nection of  his  family  with  the  place  of  his  birth  had  been 
of  a  very  passing  nature. 

It  was  in  the  spirit  of  the  age  to  regard  the  provision  of 
bridges  and  highways  as  an  act  of  piety — and  we  are  not 
surprised,  therefore,  to  find  numerous  bequests  for  this 
purpose,  though,  not  unnaturally,  these  bequests  are 
confined  to  localities  with  which  he  had  had  relations,  or 
those  in  which  his  Hospital  was  to  have  interests.  We 
read  of  gifts  for  the  repair  of  the  highway  from  Islington 
to  Stoke  Newington,  and  at  Hackney,  Balsham,  Horse- 
heath,  Castle  Camps  and  Southminster.  We  find  legacies 
to  nephews  and  nieces — especially  to  Simon  Baxter  and 
Francis  Baxter.  A  large  legacy  of  £2000  to  his  step- 
daughter, Lady  Anne  Popham,  but  so  surrounded  by 
precautions,  and  so  guarded  by  the  condition  that  the 
legacy  is  to  be  subject  to  a  receipt  being  given  as  a  full 
discharge,  that  we  are  forced  to  see  that  Sutton  had  some 
misgivings.  These  misgivings  express  themselves  more  at 
large  by  a  clause  which  made  all  his  legacies  void  on  the 
least  opposition  by  the  legatee  to  the  conditions  of  the 
will.  He  left  £1000  to  the  city  of  London  for  loans 
without  interest  to  young  men  to  aid  them  in  starting  on 
their  business  careers.  He  left  legacies  to  the  children  of 
Dr.  Cox,  supposed  to  have  been  his  Headmaster  at  Eton ; 
a  gift  of  £500  to  Jesus  College,  and  of  the  same  sum  to 
Magdalen  College,  Cambridge.  All  his  servants  are 
remembered,  and  many  other  persons  whom  we  cannot 
identify. 


192  THOMAS   SUTTON 

Very  notable  is  a  legacy  of  £400  to  Thomas  Howard, 
Earl  of  Suffolk,  with  the  further  option  of  purchasing  the 
Manors  of  Littlebury  and  Hadstock  for  £10,000,  the  said 
sum  to  be  used  for  his  Foundation,  to  which  he  bequeathed 
(in  addition  to  all  the  estates)  a  sum  of  £5000,  and  £1000 
for  immediate  expenses  of  the  House. 

When  I  have  mentioned  the  quaint  domestic  bequest 
to  Amy  Popham  "  of  three  feather  beds  and  so  many  pair 
of  holland  sheets  with  the  bolsters  to  them,  with  so  many 
hangings  of  tapestry,"  I  shall  have  given  all  the  samples 
that  are  needed  of  a  will  which  is  singularly  typical  of  the 
age  in  which  it  was  made,  and  even  more  characteristic  of 
the  individual  who  made  it.  Sutton  has  had  his  critics, 
both  in  other  matters  and  in  the  details  of  this  his  will ; 
but  for  myself,  as  I  read  through  the  thoughtful,  kindly 
paragraphs,  I  find  in  it  a  very  human  document  telling  of 
the  painstaking  nature  of  a  man  who  did  his  good  by 
method  and  with  forethought,  of  one  who  had  in  a  long 
life  obtained  a  very  sure  and  clear-sighted  outlook  on  the 
needs  and  claims  of  life,  and,  above  all,  of  one  who  did  not 
intend  to  let  any  of  his  great  purpose  fail  by  lack  of  care 
on  his  part.  The  comment  has  been  made  that  Sutton 
would  have  done  better  to  have  divested  himself  of  some 
of  his  riches  at  an  earlier  date  in  his  life,  and  to  have  made 
them  over  by  a  deed  of  gift.  It  is,  I  think,  a  sound  answer 
to  this,  that  Sutton  may  have  judged  that,  by  his  own 
husbandry  of  his  estates,  so  long  as  his  life  lasted,  he  was 
more  likely  to  leave  behind  him  a  sum  adequate  to  his 
purpose  than  if  he  had  cut  the  increment  short  by  a  much 
earlier  deed  of  gift. 

The  appointment  of  a  Master  is  dated  Oct.  30,  1611. 
Two  days  later,  Nov.  2,  he  signs  the  deed  of  conveyance 
of  the  Hospital  to  the  Governors,  and  on  Nov.  28  he 
makes  his  will.  The  combination  of  these  three  acts 
within  a  month  shows  that  he  realised  that  his  time  was 
short.  A  fortnight  later,  namely  on  Dec.  12,  1611,  Thomas 
Sutton  was  dead  in  his  house  at  Hackney.* 

*  A  local  tradition  at  Hackney  makes  St.  John's  Institute  the 
house  in  which  Sutton  died.  It  adjoins  property  which  belonged 
to  Sutton.  The  real  house  was  destroyed. 


THE    FIRST   GOVERNORS  193 

He  had  named  as  his  executors  his  friend  John  Law, 
"  one  of  the  procurators  of  the  Arches,"  and  a  cousin, 
Richard  Sutton,  while  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
George  Abbott,  and  the  Bishop  of  Ely,  Lancelot  Andrews, 
King's  Almoner,  were  made  overseers  of  his  will. 

It  is  important  to  note  that  the  first  Governors  who 
were  to  administer  the  affairs  of  the  Hospital  and  to  draw 
up  its  Constitution  had  been  named  in  the  letters-patent 
granted  on  June  22,  1911,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  doubt 
that  they  were  there  by  Sutton's  choice  and  with  their 
own  approval.  The  original  list  is  as  follows  : — 

The  Lord  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (George  Abbott). 

Thomas  Lord  Ellesmere,  Lord  Chancellor. 

*  Robert,  Earl  of  Salisbury. 
John  King,  Bishop  of  London. 

Lancelot  Andrews,  Bishop  of  Ely  (the  King's  Almoner). 
Sir  Edward  Coke,  Knt.,  Lord  Chief  Justice. 
Dr.  John  Overall,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's. 

*  Sir  Thomas  Foster,  Knt. 

Sir  Henry  Hobart,  Bt.  and  Knt.,  Lord  Chief  Justice 
of  Common  Pleas. 

George  Montaigne,  Dean  of  Westminster. 

Henry  Thoresby  or  Thursby,  Esq. 

Richard  Sutton,  Esq. 

John  Lawe,  Esq. 

Geoffrey  Nightingale,  Esq. 

Thomas  Browne,  Esq. 

Rev.  John  Hutton,  M.A.,  Master  of  Charterhouse. 

*  The  Earl  of  Salisbury  (Kobert  Cecil)  and  Sir  Thomas  Foster 
died  before  the  first  Governors'  Meeting.     Their  places  were  taken 
by  Henry,  Earl  of  Northampton,  Lord  Privy  Seal,  and  Sir  James 
Altham,  Knt.,  one  of  the  Barons  of  the  Exchequer. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE   IMMEDIATE  SEQUEL  TO  THE  FOUNDER'S  WILL 

THERE  is  no  wish  more  often  felt  and  expressed  by  men 
than  that  which  asks  that  their  laying  to  their  rest  shall 
be  of  the  simplest,  and  it  is  the  one  wish  that  is  most 
universally  set  aside.  Button's  words  in  his  will  are 
"  and  my  body  I  will  to  be  buried  where,  and  in  what 
sort,  it  shall  seem  meet  and  convenient  to  mine  executor 
or  executors,  and  supervisor  or  supervisors  of  this  my 
last  Will  and  Testament,  with  the  least  pomp  and  charge 
that  may  be."  In  what  sort  the  executors  interpreted 
this  last  wish  will  presently  be  seen. 

Sutton,  as  we  have  said,  died  at  his  house  in  Hackney, 
and  the  bequest  in  his  will  of  a  sum  to  be  spent  on  the 
repairing  of  the  highway  receives  some  light  from  the 
decision  of  the  executors  that  the  roads  were  so  bad  in  winter 
that  the  body  must  remain  where  it  was  till  it  could  be 
transferred.  It  was  therefore  embalmed  and  encased  in  a 
coffin  of  lead,*  and  not  until  May  28  of  1612  was  it  trans- 
ferred to  its  temporary  resting-place  in  the  old  church  of 
the  Franciscans  (Greyfriars),  Christchurch  (adjoining  the 
present  General  Post  Office),  until  it  could  be  carried  to  the 
vault  under  the  wing  which  was  now  to  be  added  to  Charter- 
house Chapel. 

The  Governors  held  their  first  meeting  that  day  at 

*  This  coffin  remains  in  the  vault  beneath  the  Founder's  tomb, 
having  alone  been  allowed  to  keep  its  place  in  April  30,  1898, 
when  all  the  other  coffins  were  removed  to  Woking.  A  note  in  the 
handwriting  of  Archdeacon  Hale,  which  I  have  seen,  states  that  he 
measured  the  coffin  and  found  it  to  be  5  feet  8  inches  in  length . 

194 


THE   FOUNDER'S    FUNERAL  195 

Hackney  before  the  funeral.  Never,  perhaps,  was  private 
person  carried  to  his  grave  with  greater  pomp  or  at  greater 
charges,  in  spite  of  his  own  longing  for  a  simplicity  which 
belonged  so  much  better  to  his  nature.  The  Governors 
themselves  followed  the  bier,  with  the  Earl  of  Suffolk, 
Francis  Popham,  and  many  others  in  the  train,  which, 
we  are  told,  consisted  at  least  of  6000  of  all  conditions 
of  men.  The  great  procession,  after  its  long  march  from 
Hackney,  paused  for  awhile  at  John  Lawe's  house  in 
Paternoster  Row,  and  then,  if  we  are  to  believe  what 
we  are  told,  took  six  hours  to  achieve  the  few  remaining 
paces  to  Christchurch,  where  the  funeral  service  was  held. 
As  for  the  funeral  feast,  which  took  place  directly  after 
in  Stationers'  Hall  hard  by,  it  could  have  no  more  claim 
to  immortality  than  any  other  consumption  of  human 
food,  save  for  a  certain  quaintness  which,  perhaps,  makes 
it  worth  recording  in  an  Appendix.  What  most  concerns 
us  is  that  the  charges  of  the  funeral,  its  black  cloth  hangings, 
its  pompous  procession,  its  Herald's  Office  fees,*  the  strewn 
rushes  for  the  floor,  the  colossal  eating  and  drinking 
reached  the  huge  amount  of  over  £2000,  including,  how- 
ever, the  splendid  tomb  which  Nicholas  Stone  and  Bernard 
Jansen  were  presently  to  make  at  a  cost  of  £400.  The 
tomb,  indeed,  is  the  one  feature  of  it  all  which  can  be 
regarded  with  satisfaction  as  a  right  and  worthy  memorial 
to  the  Founder. 

But  no  sooner  was  this  great  funeral  over  than  one 
of  its  chief  mourners  produced  for  us  an  object-lesson  on 
the  sometimes  value  of  sorrow  so  expressed.  Simon 
Baxter,  Sutton's  nephew,  whose  name  appears  in  the 
will  for  a  legacy  of  £300,  at  once  took  steps,  "suborned 
by  others  "  as  he  afterwards  declared,  to  upset  the  will, 
and  he  commenced  legal  proceedings.  He  did  not,  how- 
ever, stop  at  that.  For,  believing  in  the  legal  force  of 
possession,  he  made,  with  some  companions,  an  attempt 
at  forcible  entrance  to  Charterhouse.  Once  more  a 
valiant  Charterhouse  porter,  as  in  the  days  of  Mr.  Sheriff 

*  William  Camden,  Clarenaeux,  signs  the  receipt  for  the  heraldic 
painting  used  for  the  occasion. 


196    SEQUEL  TO  THE  FOUNDER'S  WILL 

Kimpton,  proved  equal  to  his  post.  Richard  Bird,  an 
old  servant  of  Sutton,  who  had  been  made  porter,  barred 
the  gatehouse  and  kept  possession  for  the  executors.  It 
is  difficult  to  see  what  possible  case  Simon  Baxter  could 
have  had.  The  will  was  regular  in  every  respect.  Relatives 
had  not  been  forgotten,  all  due  claims  had  been  provided 
for.  There  would  hardly  be  found  in  these  days  a  solicitor 
to  advise  so  hopeless  an  attempt,  and  that  very  fact 
reminds  us  that  in  those  days  the  course  of  justice  was  more 
subject  to  other  influences  than  in  these.  There  are 
items  in  Sutton's  will  which  show  that  he  foresaw  danger 
from  opposition  to  his  plan.  Some  of  the  legacies  are 
plainly  meant  to  smooth  the  way.  The  Governors  them- 
selves had,  equally,  no  illusions.  Their  policy  throughout 
the  critical  period  that  followed  Sutton's  death  was  to 
appease  in  various  shapes  all  those  who,  from  the  King 
downwards,  might  interpose  obstacles. 

We  shall,  however,  do  well  to  follow  the  exact  legal 
sequence  of  the  events  that  followed,  and  I  think  it  im- 
portant to  append  at  the  end  of  this  ehapter  a  table  which 
shall  show  at  a  glance  the  dates  of  the  various  transactions 
which  led  up  to  the  final  settlement  of  Sutton's  Hospital. 
These  dates  have  been  strangely  misstated  in  existing 
histories  of  Charterhouse,  and  inferences  have  been  drawn 
which  would  have  been  greatly  modified  if  more  accuracy 
had  been  observed. 

In  the  first  place,  however,  mention  must  be  made  of 
a  document  to  which  we  cannot  with  certainty  assign  a 
date.  We  have  spoken  of  Simon  Baxter's  assertion  that, 
in  his  lawsuit  against  the  executors,  he  had  been  "  suborned 
by  others."  There  is  no  doubt  that  Sutton's  Foundation 
was  strongly  opposed  in  powerful  quarters,  and  from  no 
source  was  the  opposition  more  dangerous  than  from 
Sir  Francis  Bacon,  the  Solicitor-General,  who  presently 
was  to  appear  as  one  of  the  advocates  for  Simon  Baxter. 
In  the  Charterhouse  Muniment  Room  is  preserved  the 
copy  of  a  letter  written  by  Bacon  to  James  I.  It  bears 
unfortunately  no  date,  and  we  are  left  to  place  it  in  its 
position  with  reference  to  other  events  by  conjecture. 


SIR   FRANCIS   BACON  197 

The  Baxter  suit  was,  according  to  Sir  Edward  Coke's 
report,  in  the  Michaelmas  Term  of  10  James  I,  i.e.  1612. 
It  is  not  conceivable  that  Bacon  should  have  had  the 
indecency  to  write  the  letter  to  James  after  the  case 
had  once  become  sub  judice,  and  it  is  therefore  neces- 
sary to  place  it  between  Dec.  12,  1611,  the  date  of  Sutton's 
death,  and  the  autumn  of  the  year  1612.  The  letter, 
which  is  quoted  at  full  length,  has  been  several  times 
reprinted  *  and  is,  both  in  style  and  in  manner  of  argument, 
typical  of  the  great  philosopher  and  lawyer. 

He  fills  many  pages  in  characteristic  phrases  and 
argument  to  disparage,  as  it  seems,  this  and  all  kindred 
schemes  of  charity.  His  letter  proceeds  with  much 
sententious  wisdom  expressed,  as  he  alone  could  express 
it,  to  his  own  final  conclusion — one  which  one  can  hardly 
believe  to  have  been  reached  by  one  who  has  been  called 
"  the  wisest  of  mankind."  He  finally  proposes,  indeed,  to 
substitute  for  Sutton's  purpose,  which  he  has  to  the  best 
of  his  great  powers  discredited,  one  of  three  schemes  of  his 
own.  The  first  of  these  is  the  foundation  of  "  a  Colledge 
for  Controversies."  The  second  is  a  "  receipt,"  i.e.  place 
of  reception ;  he  "  likes  not  the  word  seminary,"  for  con- 
verts from  Romanism  to  the  Reformed  Religion.  The  third 
scheme  was  to  use  the  endowment  for  the  appointment 
of  preachers  to  peregrinate  those  corners  of  England  which 
were  backward  in  religion.  Purblind  as  he  was,  where  his 
vanity  was  played  upon  or  his  supposed  sagacity  invoked, 
James,  even  in  his  most  fatuous  moments,  which  were 
many,  could  hardly  have  been  tempted  to  endorse  the 
colossal  folly  of  at  least  the  first  two  schemes.  We  do  not 
know  what  effect,  if  any,  the  famous  letter  had  upon 
the  views  of  the  King.  We  shall  presently  see  that  the 
Governors,  after  they  had  apparently  secured  legal  cer- 
tainty, thought  it  well  to  make  sure  of  the  Royal  Mind 
by  a  method  not  unfamiliar  in  that  day.  For  the  present, 
however,  we  must  return  to  the  dry  record  of  the  law- 
suit. 

*  See  Symthe,  History  of  Charterhouse,  and  Dr.  Haig  Brown, 
Charterhouse,  Past  and  Present. 


198        SEQUEL  TO  THE  FOUNDER'S   WILL 

Baxter,  the  plaintiff,  in  his  suit  against  John  Law 
and  Richard  Sutton,  the  executors  of  the  Founder's  Will, 
alleged  that  the  defendants  had  broken  into  Charterhouse, 
his  lawful  property  as  Sutton's  nearest  of  kin.  Therefore, 
ran  the  order  of  the  Court  at  this  first  hearing,  "  Let  a 
jury  come  before  the  King  [King's  Bench]  on  Saturday 
eight  days  [Octave]  after  Hilary  "  (i.e.  Feb.  1,  1613).  It 
was  "  respitted  "  till  "  the  Monday  next  after  the  Morrow 
of  the  Purification  of  the  Blessed  Mary  next  following  " 
(i.e.  Feb.  8,  1613),  at  which  time  came  Richard  Sutton, 
John  Lawe,  and  Simon  Baxter  through  his  attorney. 
The  jurors  being  called,  the  jurors  say  on  oath  that  Thomas 
Sutton  was  seised  of  the  property  :  and  that  on  July  24  of 
7  James  I  (1609)  it  was  enacted  by  Act  of  Parliament 
that  Thomas  Sutton  might  found  a  Hospital  at  Halling- 
bury.  [It  will  be  remembered  that  on  June  22, 1611,  letters- 
patent  from  James  had  authorised  the  change  of  site  to 
Charterhouse.]  A  day  was  accordingly  given  to  appear 
before  the  Lord  the  King  until  Wednesday  next  after 
fifteen  days  of  Easter.  [Easter  Day  fell  on  April  4  in  1613.] 
The  Court,  that  day,  "  was  not  advised."  A  day  was  given 
until  Friday  next  after  the  morrow  of  Holy  Trinity  to  hear 
their  judgment.  [Trinity  Sunday  fell  on  May  30,  in  1613.] 
The  case  was  adjourned  out  of  King's  Bench  into  Exchequer, 
and  on  June  2,*  1613,  it  was  argued  at  the  bar  for  the 
plaintiff  by  John  Walter  of  the  Inner  Temple ;  Yelverton 
of  Gray's  Inn ;  and,  lastly,  by  Bacon,  Solicitor-General. 
For  the  defendant  by  Coventry,  Inner  Temple ;  Hutton, 
Serjeant-at-law ;  Sir  Henry  Hobart,  Attorney-General. 
Case  argued  in  Exchequer  Chamber  by  all  the  Judges 
of  England  and  Barons  of  the  Exchequer  except  the  Chief 
Justice  of  King's  Bench,  being  then  sick — to  wit,  Sir  Robert 
Houghton,  Sir  Augustus  Nicolls,  Sir  John  Dodderidge, 
Sir  Humphrey  Winch,  Sir  Edward  Bromley,  Sir  James 
Altham,  Sir  George  Snigge,  Sir  Peter  Warburton,  the  Chief 
Baron,  and  Sir  Edward  Coke,  Chief  Justice  of  Common 
Pleas,  and  it  was  resolved  by  them  all  in  their  arguments, 

*  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Richard  Bird,  the  porter,  was 
called  on  this  occasion. 


THE   LAW   SUIT  199 

except   by   Baron   Snigge   and   Justice    Coke,    that    the 
defendants,  Law  and  Sutton,  were  not  guilty. 

It  is  essential  to  note  that  this  judgment,  which  decided 
in  favour  of  Sutton's  Foundation,  was  given  on  June  2, 
because  some  writers  have  hinted  that  this  decision  was 
obtained,  or  at  least  accelerated,  by  something  like  a  bribe 
held  out  by  the  Governors  of  Charterhouse.  The  "  bribe  " 
in  question — namely,  the  gift  of  £10,000  to  the  Crown  for 
the  rebuilding  of  Berwick  Bridge,  presently  to  be  mentioned 
— was  not  offered  till  June  26,  twenty-four  days  after  the 
judgment  had  been  delivered.  The  judges,  at  least, 
must  be  acquitted  of  any  charges  which  have  been  brought 
against  them  through  the  failure  to  observe  the  sequence 
of  events.  It  is,  indeed,  hard  to  see  what  other  judgment 
they  could  have  given.  The  case  was  so  clear,  the  steps 
taken  by  the  Founder  had  been  so  careful  and  complete, 
that  it  is  not  possible  for  us  to  explain  how  it  came  that 
Baxter  should  have  entered  a  suit  so  hopeless,  except 
upon  the  supposition  that  he  trusted  to  influences,  which 
in  this  case  entirely  failed  to  set  aside  the  course  of 
justice. 

The  Governors  had  now  obtained  judgment  which 
placed  the  legality  of  the  Foundation  beyond  further 
question,  and  already, Iby  the  Letters  Patent  of  June  22, 1611, 
the  Royal  Consent  had  been  obtained.  Nothing  but  the 
revocation  of  these  Letters  Patent — a  most  improbable 
step  on  the  part  of  the  King,  even  though  that  King  was 
James  I — could  now  prevent  the  completion  of  Sutton's 
scheme.  Whether,  indeed,  the  Governors  thought  it 
wisest  to  make  all  safe  with  the  King  by  a  seasonable 
offering  (as  has  been  generally  assumed),  or  whether  their 
action  (for  we  may  suppose  that  the  two  overseers  of  the 
will  did  not  act  without  consulting  the  Governors),  it  is 
certain  that  on  June  26,  1613,  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury (George  Abbott),  and  Lancelot  Andrewes,  Bishop  of 
Ely,  the  overseers  of  the  will,  wrote  a  letter  to  King  James, 
in  which,  after  much  preamble,  they  profess  that  "  having 
advisedly  considered  that  there  is  not  any  charitable 
work  better  for  the  Common  Wealth  than  the  upholding, 


200    SEQUEL  TO  THE  FOUNDER'S  WILL 

maintaining,  and  repairing  of  bridges  "  (here  they  do  indeed 
echo  the  thought  which  we  find  so  often  inspiring  gifts  and 
bequests  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  provision 
of  secure  Roadway  by  land  and  Bridgeway  by  water  stood 
as  a  high  Christian  duty),  they  desire  his  Majesty's  accept- 
ance of  the  sum  of  £10,000  for  the  repairing — it  was  practi- 
cally rebuilding — of  Barwick  Bridge  on  the  River  Tweed. 
Whether  this  was  really  of  the  nature  of  a  bribe — there 
are  clearly  two  views  possible — or  the  use  of  a  sum  by  the 
overseers  which  they  had  the  right  to  use  for  a  pious  purpose, 
the  King  received  the  gift  with  great  complaisancy.  For 
on  July  8,  1613,  the  Governors  were  let  know  by  a  Royal 
letter  under  the  Privy  Seal  that  "  we  are  well  pleased  to 
accept  thereof  accordingly." 

But  nine  days  earlier  than  the  writing  of  this  letter, 
namely,  on  June  30,  1613,  the  Governors  held  their  first 
meeting.  I  find  this  date  given  in  no  less  than  four  previous 
histories  as  July  30,  but  the  minute  books  of  the  Governors' 
Assemblies  leaves  no  doubt  whatever  that  it  was  held 
on  the  date  which  I  have  given.  And  the  question  is 
not  without  its  bearing  on  the  subject,  for  it  shows  that  the 
Governors  had  no  doubt  whatever  of  their  position,  and 
it  perhaps  suggests  that  the  King's  acceptance  or  refusal 
of  the  gift  of  the  overseers  was  not  a  matter  which  so 
affected  their  position  that  they  need  wait  for  a  pronounce- 
ment. And  so  five  days  after  the  overseers  had,  whether 
by  way  of  bridging  over  their  danger  or  by  way  of  pious 
duty,  made  their  offer  to  the  Crown,  they  felt  free  to  begin 
their  practical  duties  as  organisers  of  Sutton's  Hospital. 
Bacon's  Bear  Garden  for  Controversies  and  the  Clearing- 
house for  Converts  were  set  aside  in  favour  of  a  place 
of  training  for  the  work  of  life  for  the  young,  and  a  place 
of  honourable  rest  after  the  work  of  life  is  over  for  the  old. 
Sutton's  purpose  was  founded  on  the  eternal  needs  and 
claims  of  Humanity.  With  a  restraint  which  is  rare  in 
those  who  long  cherish  a  great  project,  only  to  see  it 
pass  from  their  hands  before  it  is  accomplished,  Sutton  did 
not  tie  the  hands  of  the  Governors  whom  he  had  chosen 
as  to  the  details  of  his  hospital.  The  exact  Constitution 


THE   CONSTITUTION  201 

of  the  Foundation  was  left  for  them  to  shape.  They 
met  for  the  first  time  for  the  purposes  of  real  business — 
the  meeting  at  Hackney  on  the  day  of  the  funeral  can 
hardly  be  counted — twenty-eight  days  after  the  decision 
of  the  Judges,  namely,  on  June  30,  1613.  This  "  Assembly 
of  Governors  "  was  held  in  the  Great  Chamber  or  Reception 
Chamber  of  Howard  House,  destined  from  that  day  forward 
to  be  called  "  the  Governors'  Room."  An  entry  in  the 
expense  book  tells  us  of  the  sum  expended  on  hangings 
for  the  occasion,  and  on  rushes  for  strewing  the  floor 
a  practice  which  had  almost  reached  its  last  days  in 
England — and,  above  all,  a  large  salmon,  presumably  from 
the  Thames.  All  the  sixteen  Governors  were  present. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  no  Governors'  Assembly 
of  equal  importance  has  ever  been  held,  since  before 
the  members  had  that  day  passed  out  of  the  Porter's 
Lodge  the  shape  which  the  double  Foundation  was  to 
take  had  been  fixed.  It  will  be  best  at  this  point  to  quote 
verbatim  from  the  minutes  as  they  exist  in  our  Muniment 
Room.* 

"  Item.  It  is  constituted  and  ordayned  by  the  Consent 
of  all  the  sayed  Governors  that  there  shall  noe  Rogues 
or  Common  Beggars  be  placed  in  the  said  Hospitall  but  suche 
poore  persons  as  can  bringe  goode  testimonye  and  certi- 
ficat  of  their  good  behavioure  and  soundnes  in  Religion 
and  suche  as  have  been  Servaunts  of  the  Kyng's  Matie 
either  decrepit  or  old  Captaynes  either  at  Sea  or  Land, 
Souldiers  maymed  or  ympotent  decayed  Marchaunts 
men  fallen  into  decaye  through  Shipwrecke,  Casualtie, 
or  Fyer  or  such  evill  Accident ;  those  that  have  been 
Captives  under  the  Turkes  *  etc." 

"  Item.  No  Children  to  be  placed  there  whose  parents 
have  any  Estate  of  Lands  to  leave  unto  them  but  onlie 
the  Children  of  poore  Men  that  want  Meanes  to  bringe 
them  up." 

*  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  word  "  Turk  "  had  at  this  date 
obtained  a  generic  meaning,  applying  in  a  general  sense  to  sea-rovers, 
pirates,  and  enemies  at  large  from  whom  the  sailor  and  the  marc-haunt 
Venturer  alike  might  meet  with  disaster  to  their  fortune. 


202    SEQUEL  TO  THE  FOUNDER'S  WILL 

Here  we  find  indicated  for  us  the  spirit  in  which  the 
first  Governors  interpreted  their  trust.  The  clause  points 
to  the  "  poor  gentleman "  class  rather  than  to  the 
class  which  we  usually  call  "  the  poor  "  or  "  the  indigent 
poor." 

It  behoves  us  to  go  into  this  point  at  greater  length 
than  should  seem  necessary,  because  it  has  at  times  been 
urged  that  Charterhouse  is  one  of  those  trusts  which  have 
been  wrested  from  their  true  purpose,  and  turned  to  the 
advantage  of  a  class  higher  in  the  social  scale.  The 
Founder's  intention,  it  has  been  said,  was  to  create  a 
Foundation  for  the  good  of  the  needy  poor.  It  will  there- 
fore be  of  use  to  place  before  the  reader  some  important 
considerations. 

Sutton  had  nursed  his  scheme  since,  at  least,  1594, 
but  probably  for  a  much  longer  time.  In  that  year,  it 
will  be  remembered,  he  conveyed  provisionally  his  Essex 
estates  for  a  Foundation  at  Hallingbury,  and  in  1610 
obtained  letters  patent  for  it,  to  be  changed  in  1611  into 
letters  patent  for  Charterhouse ;  but  in  none  of  the  three 
instances  did  he  insert  any  detail  as  to  the  Constitution 
of  his  Hospital,  nor  did  he  exactly  in  those  legal  documents 
define  the  class  for  whom  he  intended  it.  To  the  letters 
patent  for  Charterhouse,  however,  the  names  of  the  first 
Governors  were  attached.  It  is  impossible  to  suppose 
that  Sutton  had  not  obtained  their  individual  consent 
to  act  in  that  capacity  before  their  names  were  inserted, 
nor  can  we  suppose  that  he  failed  to  possess  them  of  what 
his  real  purpose  was.  There  is  evidence  that  he  himself 
had  studied  carefully  the  character  of  his  future  Foundation. 
Amongst  his  papers  was  found  a  copy  of  the  regulations 
for  the  Knights  of  Windsor  (now  in  our  Muniment  Room), 
with  marginal  notes  and  comments  in  Sutton's  hand. 
If  we  transfer  ourselves  to  his  position  we  find  it  hard 
to  suppose  that  he  would  have  left  his  Governors  free  to 
shape  his  Foundation  unless  he  had  felt  sure  that  he 
could  trust  them  to  shape  it  according  to  his  wish.  In 
any  other  frame  of  mind  he  would  assuredly  have  tied  them 
by  closer  definition.  Perhaps  it  would  have  been  better, 


THE   FOUNDER'S    INTENTIONS  203 

for  the  silencing  of  future  cavil,  if  he  had  done  so.  That 
he  did  not  so  may  be  claimed  as  the  strongest  presumption 
that  he  and  they  were  at  one  before  his  death  as  to  his 
meaning. 

Another  argument  will  seem  of  force  to  those  who 
have  understood  the  precarious  condition  of  the  scheme 
in  the  middle  of  that  summer  in  which  (June  30,  1613) 
the  first  Assembly  was  held.  It  had  escaped  from  the 
quicksands  of  the  law,  but  safe  anchorage  was  not  yet 
assured.  On  all  sides  were  enemies  who  were  averse 
to  seeing  so  much  promising  plunder  taken  safely  into 
port.  Any  flaw  in  the  action  of  the  Governors  would  have 
been  at  once  seized  upon  to  make  the  scheme  a  wreck. 
We  have  read  Bacon's  letter,  for  example,  and  he  was 
but  one  of  many.  Is  it  conceivable  that  with  the  know- 
ledge of  this  state  of  things  the  Governors,  before  they  were 
out  of  danger  should  have,  at  their  first  serious  meeting, 
run  the  risk  of  shipwreck  by  perverting  the  purpose  of  the 
Founder  ?  There  were,  it  must  be  remembered,  scores  of 
men  then  alive  who  knew  and  had  heard  from  Sutton  what 
he  intended.  The  outcry  would  have  been  loud  and 
instant  from  those  who  were  watching  for  an  opportunity. 

A  curious  little  piece  of  incidental  but  forceful  evidence 
is  found  in  the  statement  of  Percival  Burrell  in  a  sermon 
preached  on  Founder's  Day,  1614,  already  quoted.*  In 
it  he  declares  that  he  had  it  from  a  friend  of  Sutton's, 
still  alive,  that  the  Founder  had  intended  himself  to  be 
the  first  Master  of  the  Hospital.  Now,  in  the  first  days 
of  the  Hospital  the  Master  and  officers  dined  with  the 
Brothers.  It  may  of  course  be  said  that  it  does  not  follow 
that  Sutton  would  have  adopted  this  arrangement.  But 
it  is  hard  to  believe,  even  without  insisting  on  that  detail, 
that  Sutton,  a  man  who  had  lived  amongst  the  high  ones 
of  the  land,  should  have  proposed  to  himself  to  end  his 
days  in  the  immediate  company  of  men  of  the  lowest  social 
grade. 

The  sixteen  men  chosen  by  Sutton  to  be  the  first 
Governors  were  men  of  high  standing  and  character.  They 
*  Printed  in  1627.  A  copy  is  in  the  British  Museum. 


204   SEQUEL  TO  THE  FOUNDER'S  WILL 

included  his  kinsman,  Richard,  and  his  personal  friends, 
Law  and  Thoresby,  who  would  hardly  have  kept  peace 
if  they  had  seen  their  old  friend's  wishes  abruptly  set 
aside.  It  was  an  age,  moreover,  in  which  the  literal 
adherence  to  the  known  purposes  of  a  trust  was  held  to  be 
more  of  a  sacred  duty  than  in  these  later  days,  when 
greater  freedom  of  interpretation  is  admitted.  And  we  can 
hardly  be  wrong  hi  thinking  that  on  June  30,  1613,  the 
Governors  were  expressing  the  intentions  of  the  Founder 
which  had  been  made  known  to  them  when  they  first 
consented  to  act.  The  position  of  those  who  believe, 
as  the  writer  does,  that  the  acts  of  the  first  Governors 
essentially  present  the  acts  of  Sutton  himself,  seems 
sufficiently  strong  without  further  elaboration. 

Little  more  was  done  at  this  first  Governors'  Assembly 
beyond  the  renewal  of  a  few  leases  upon  Sutton's  estates. 
It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  John  Hutton  was  present, 
as  the  minutes  record,  in  his  capacity  as  Master.  No 
election  by  the  Governors  of  this  first  Master  ever  took 
place — though  some  writers  have  recorded  one — since 
it  had  been  made  superfluous  by  the  fact  that  he  was 
named  as  such  by  the  letters  patent  of  June  22,  1613. 
Hutton  was  Vicar  of  Littlebury  in  Essex,  a  few  miles 
from  Saffron  Walden,  where  Sutton  owned  the  Manor,* 
and  where  he  at  times  made  use  of  the  Manor  House 
as  a  residence.  Sutton  is  occasionally  described  in  earlier 
documents  as  "  of  Littlebury  "  on  this  account.  Hutton 
resigned  his  post  next  year,  1614,  before  the  Hospital 
had  come  into  being,  and  accepted  the  small  living  of 
Dunsby  in  Lincolnshire,  f  At  their  next  Assembly  on  Nov. 
13,  1613,  the  Governors  proceeded  to  practical  details. 
They  elected  a  Preacher,  Humphrey  Harkness,  a  Steward, 
John  Mocket,  and  an  Auditor,  John  Wolton.  The  twenty- 
one  first  Brothers,  headed  by  Captain  George  Ffenner, 
of  whom  more  hereafter,  were  nominated  and  elected, 
and  the  first  Gownboy  or  Scholar  on  the  Foundation, 

*  Left  conditionally  by  his  will,  with  Hadstock,  to  the  Earl  of 
Suffolk. 

t  This  living  is  still  in  the  gift  of  the  Governors  (1913). 


THE    ALTERATIONS  205 

James  Mullens  was  also  elected.  Until,  however,  the 
Foundation  actually  was  to  be  opened  (nearly  a  year  later) 
the  Brothers  were  to  receive  at  the  rate  of  £5  a  year.  A 
working  committee  of  eight,  four  to  form  a  quorum,  was 
appointed,  Baron  Altham,  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  (Overall), 
the  Dean  of  Westminster  (Montaigne),  Henry  Thoresby, 
Jeffery  Nightingale,  John  Lawe,  Richard  Sutton,  and 
the  Master.  These  were  entrusted  with  the  task  of 
sifting  and  reporting  on  all  applications  for  the  Brother- 
hood and  for  the  School,  with  large  general  powers  also 
of  provision  for  all  needs,  and  reconstruction  of  the  houses 
and  rooms  of  the  mansion  to  the  purposes  of  the  Founda- 
tion. Law  and  Sutton  were  specially  charged  with  the 
provision  of  all  needful  materials  for  this  work,  and  of 
all  household  stuff.  It  is  at  this  point  that  we  have  to 
deplore  the  loss  of  the  first,  and  by  far  the  most  instructive, 
of  all  the  committee  books.*  A  note  in  the  handwriting 
of  Thomas  Melmoth,  Registrar  from  1741  to  1767,  tells 
us  that  it  had  already  disappeared  in  his  day.  It  would 
have  enabled  us  to  realise  the  exact  changes  which  were 
made  and,  judging  by  the  minute  completeness  of  the 
rest  of  the  series,  would  have  given  us  absolute  certainty 
on  many  points  which  are  now  merely  conjectural.  The 
expense  books  and  accounts  of  the  date  supply  the  defect 
only  in  a  few  instances.  We  learn,  however,  that  the 
Chapel  was  at  once  taken  in  hand.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  in  monastic  days  there  had  been  not  a  few  chapels, 
a  chapterhouse,  sacristy,  etc.,  built  against  the  main  church. 
These  had,  since  the  suppression,  been  removed,  leaving, 
it  seems,  nothing  but  the  main  church  which  had  in  some 
shape  existed  since  1349,  and  the  tower  with  the  three 
storeys  of  chambers  within  it,  of  early  sixteenth  century 
date.  This  church  (now  the  south  wing  of  our  Hospital 
Chapel)  being  only  61  feet  6  inches  by  22  feet  9  inches 
was  far  too  small  for  its  purpose.  A  second  wing  of  almost 
similar  size  was  built  on  to  the  north  of  it,  the  north  wall 

*  In  1909  the  Master  recovered  from  a  second-hand  book  dealer 
a  few  pages  of  this  lost  book.  It  proved  to  be  the  copy  of  Bacon's 
letter.  But  it  seems  probable  that  the  rest  of  the  book  had  been 
thrown  aside  as  of  no  value  when  those  pages  were  torn  from  it. 

P 


206    SEQUEL  TO  THE  FOUNDER'S  WILL 

of  the  original  church  being  moved  a  few  feet  to  the  north 
and  pierced  through  by  three  open  arches.  It  is  stated — 
and  it  is  probably  true,  though  this  is,  perhaps,  one  of  the 
lost  facts  which  the  committee  book  took  with  it — that  this 
north  wing,  with  the  arches  in  question,  was  carried  out 
under  the  direction  of  Nicholas  Stone,  the  great  statuary 
and  architect,  to  whom  the  tomb  of  the  Founder — there  is 
no  doubt  on  this  point  as  the  receipt  exists — was  entrusted. 
Many  of  the  minor  details  of  the  change  are  in  our  account 
books  and  will  be  dealt  with  in  their  proper  place. 

The  Great  Hall  and  the  adjacent  Scholars'  Hall  needed 
little  to  adapt  them  to  their  use  for  the  Brothers  and 
Gownboys.  In  the  Great  Hall  a  chimney-piece  was  added, 
or  one  previously  existing  was  remodelled,  and  a  fire- 
place and  doorway  leading  to  the  "  cloisters  "  placed  in 
the  Smaller  Hall.  These  two  halls  communicated  by 
open  spaces  on  either  side  of  the  fireplaces  (which  were 
placed  back  to  back).  The  Master  and  the  officers  with 
the  Brothers,  nearly  ninety  in  all,  dined  in  the  Great  Hall, 
while  the  scholars,  to  the  number  of  forty,  dined  in  the 
Smaller  Hall.  The  Great  Hall  was  now  paved  with  Purbeck 
stone. 

The  living  quarters  of  the  Brothers  were  constructed 
within  the  portion  of  the  buildings  which  had  been  the 
monastery  barns,  and  had,  perhaps,  served  a  similar 
purpose  in  mansion  days.*  Knowing  what  we  do  of  the 
splendid  nature  of  such  buildings  in  the  great  monasteries 
and  remembering  that  they  had  probably  been  rebuilt  less 
than  a  hundred  years  before,  we  can  understand  that  by 
good  planning  the  shells  of  these  buildings  could  well  be 
used  as  the  outside  boundaries  of  the  new  rooms  which 
were  now  set  up  within  them.  We  read  of  floors  being 
inserted,  and  a  mason  receives  payment  for  thirty-five 
chimneys.  Unhappily  no  description  of  these  quarters, 

*  These  quarters,  perhaps  up  to  the  standard  of  their  early  day, 
were  demolished  between  1824  and  1842,  and  gave  place  to  the 
more  comfortable  quarters  designed  on  the  principle  of  college 
staircases  with  separate  rooms  for  each  Brother  which  the  Architect 
Blore  then  erected  as  the  builder  of  Pensioners'  Court  and  Preachers' 
Court, 


GOWNBOYS  207 

which  survived  well  into  the  nineteenth  century,  has  been 
preserved  to  us.  They  were  divided,  probably,  into 
separate  tenements,  with  staircases  approached  from  the 
Court  by  narrow  doorways.  One  of  these  doorways  was 
preserved  when  the  buildings  were  removed,  and  was  made 
the  entry  door  from  Chapel  Cloister  to  Brooke  Hall,  where 
it  may  still  be  seen.  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  the 
accommodation  given  in  these  comparatively  primitive 
quarters  was  in  all  respects  far  below  that  which  is  now 
provided. 

The  forty  Gownboys  were  housed  in  the  great  building 
which  had  been,  before  its  remodelling,  the  Tennis  Court 
of  Howard  House.  This  stood  at  the  north  end  of  the 
covered  arcade  and  of  the  Terrace  Walk  over  it  which 
the  Duke  of  Norfolk  had  constructed,  resting  it  upon  the 
ruined  west  front  of  the  line  of  cells.  A  Tennis  Court 
in  Elizabeth's  day,  and  especially  in  the  ownership  of  such 
a  man  as  Thomas  Howard,  was  often  a  sumptuous  affair, 
and  here  again  the  existing  building,  under  fifty  years  old, 
was  without  much  difficulty  divided  into  storeys  by  the 
insertion  of  floors,  and  partitioned  off  into  dormitories 
in  the  upper  stages,  and  two  large  living-rooms,  called 
Writing  School  and  Hall,  on  the  ground  floor.  Between 
these  two  rooms  a  broad  stone  paved  lobby  gave  space 
for  a  fine  oak  staircase  which  led  to  the  upper  quarters. 
This  lobby  was  entered  from  "  Scholars'  Court "  by  a 
fine  doorway  *  whose  stones  are  now  imbedded  in  the 
wall  of  the  cloister  at  Godalming.  From  this  the  lobby  led 
across  the  ground  floor  of  the  building  into  "  Cloisters  " 
and  so  gave  access  to  "  Upper  Green  "  (once  the  great 
cloister  of  the  monastery),  and  at  the  point  where  it  touched 
the  great  cloister  wall  there  remained  a  considerable 
portion  of  one  of  the  cottage  cells  (probably  from  its 
position  cell  E  |  in  the  monastery  plan).  This  cell 

*  The  practice  of  carving  names  on  the  stones  of  this  door  does 
not  seem  to  have  begun  before  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  earliest  name  upon  it  is  of  that  date. 

t  This  cell,  unhappily  destroyed  after  1871,  was  in  the  writer's 
day  used  by  the  "  school  groom  "  for  the  storage  of  his  utensils, 
and  wares  which  he  had  for  sale. 


208   SEQUEL  TO  THE  FOUNDER'S  WILL 

had  been  embodied  in  the  Duke's  Tennis  Court  probably 
as  a  convenient  storage  for  odds  and  ends  connected  with 
the  Tennis  Court. 

We  have  no  trustworthy  data  for  describing  the  accom- 
modation of  Gownboys  in  these  early  days  of  its  existence. 
That  it  was  primitive,  judged  by  the  standard  of  to-day  at 
Public  Schools,  is  sure  enough.  The  present  writer  spent 
nine  years  of  school  life  in  it  from  1856  to  1864,  and  it 
had  then  twice  passed  through  a  stage  of  remodelling 
and  improvement,  once  in  1805  under  Doctor  Raine  as 
Headmaster,  and  later  again  in  the  Mastership  of  Arch- 
deacon Hale.  By  1864  it  had  reached  a  point  of  sub- 
stantial comfort  which  was  equal  probably  to  that  of 
any  Public  School  of  its  day,  and  was  enough  for  any 
healthy  lad,  but  was  still  very  far  behind  the  equipment 
of  Public  Schools  fifty  years  later.  It  is  reasonable,  there- 
fore, to  suppose  that  the  original  accommodation  of  Gown- 
boys  in  1614  would  have  greatly  shocked  the  modern 
parent.  It  had  not  that  effect  upon  his  predecessors  in 
the  production  of  strong  English  character. 

We  may  suppose  that  the  Governors  provided  according 
to  the  standard  of  their  age,  but  with  a  leaning,  as  was 
fit  for  such  a  Foundation,  towards  simplicity  of  life.  But 
they  were  fully  alive  to  the  value  as  an  influence  in  the 
formation  of  character  of  dignified  surroundings.  And 
though,  in  the  dormitories  above,  Gownboys  slept  two 
in  a  bed  (till  the  year  1805),  yet  on  the  ground  floor  in 
"  Writing  School  "  there  was  provided  for  them  a  really 
noble  room  some  seventy  feet  long  by  thirty  feet  broad, 
whose  richly  decorated  ceiling  was  supported  by  eight  lofty 
oak  columns,  square  in  section.*  This  ceiling  divided 
into  panels  was  decorated  with  the  arms  of  the  first  Gover- 
nors of  Charterhouse,  and  was  carried  out  by  the  King's 
plasterer  in  1613-14.  It  was,  of  its  kind  and  date,  amongst 
the  finest  ceilings  in  England,  and  it  is  to  be  deplored 
that  steps  were  not  taken  to  preserve,  at  least,  the  arms 

*  In  1835  when  the  Headmaster  (Dr.  Saunders)  for  the  first  time 
ran  a  boarding-house,  one  half  of  Gownboy  Writing  School  was 
taken  to  form  Saunderite  Long  Room. 


GOWNBOY   HALL  209 

which  adorned  it.  In  all  other  respects  the  appearance 
of  the  house  was  severely  simple,  until  on  the  increase  of 
the  numbers  to  sixty,  Gownboy  Hall  *  was  enlarged 
under  Archdeacon  Hale's  hand,  and  became  a  worthy 
companion  to  Writing  School. 

I  have  enlarged  at  this  point  on  the  structure  of  "  Gown- 
boys  "  as  it  will  not  have  any  place  in  the  description 
which  I  propose  to  insert  later  of  the  buildings  as  they 
exist  to-day,  and  because  it  seems  important  that  some 
record  should  be  left  by  one  who  knew  it. 

To  return,  now,  to  the  work  done  in  1613-14,  in  pre- 
paration for  Sutton's  Foundation.  We  find  that  the 
Gatehouse  was  rebuilt,  "  being  like  to  fall  " — a  fact  which 
once  more  strengthens  my  belief  that  since  Norfolk's  day 
the  mansion  had  passed  through  a  period  of  some  neglect. 
The  fishpond  was  probably  filled  up,  as  we  hear  no  more 
of  it.f  The  open  square  of  the  Great  Cloister,  which  had 
become  the  Garden  and  the  Bowling  Green  of  Howard 
House,  now  became  "  Upper  Green,"  serving  as  one  half 
of  the  playground  of  the  school.  Its  northern  boundary 
was  a  low  mound,  known  as  "  Hill,"  which  schoolboy 
tradition  held  as  the  site  of  "  the  Plague  pit."  Its 
origin,  however,  was  far  other  than  this.  It  merely 
represented  the  site  of  the  seven  cottage  cells  of  the  north 
wing  of  the  Great  Cloister,  and  covered  some  of  the  debris 
and  foundations  of  those  buildings.  J  On  the  north  of 
"  Hill  "  lay  a  second  open  space  much  larger  than  Upper 
Green,  and  known  as  Under  Green.  It  had  been  the 
monk's  wilderness  or  wild  garden,  and  the  wall,  which 
in  turn  bounded  it  on  the  north,  separated  it  from  the 
street,  now  Clerkenwell  Road,  which  retained  the  name 
of  Wilderness  Row  till  within  a  few  years  of  the  present 
date  (1913).  The  covered  arcade,  which  had  led  from 

*  One  of  the  fireplaces  of  Gownboy  Hall  is  preserved  at  Godalming 
in  "  Hodgsonites." 

t  Its  site  is  now  covered  by  the  north  wing  of  Pensioners'  Court. 

j  I  have  already  mentioned  elsewhere  that  as  a  boy  at  school 
I  once  saw,  in  the  course  of  some  excavation,  the  foundations  of 
one  of  these  cells  laid  bare.  The  height  of  "  Hill  "  was  much  in- 
creased when  in  Dr.  Russell's  day  Upper  Green  was  levelled  to  form 
a  cricket  ground,  the  surplus  rubbish  being  laid  on  "  Hill." 


210   SEQUEL  TO  THE  FOUNDER'S  WILL 

the  main  mansion  to  the  Tennis  Court  of  Howard  House, 
now  served  as  a  passage  from  Gownboys  to  Gownboy 
Dining  Hall  *  (not  to  be  confused  with  Gownboy  Hall, 
which  was  inside  the  house  itself)  and  was  always  known 
by  the  name  of  Cloisters. 

With  regard  to  the  other  material  changes,  it  seems 
probable  that  the  dwelling-house  of  Howard  House  required 
little  change.  The  east  wing  and  part  of  the  south  wing 
became  the  Master's  Lodge,  and  beyond  an  account  for 
two  partitions  and  door  frames — which  I  suspect  to  have 
been  the  partitions  dividing  the  great  drawing-room  from 
its  two  neighbours — I  am  not  able  to  trace  any  work  done 
upon  it.  The  kitchen  department  and  the  offices  passed 
naturally  and  with  little  change  into  the  uses  of  the 
Hospital,  just  as  they  had  once  passed  from  the  "  obedi- 
ences "  of  the  monastery  to  the  service  of  the  mansion. 

These  changes  resulted  from  the  Governors'  Assembly 
of  Nov.  13,  1613,  and  the  sub-committee  must  have 
carried  them  out  with  great  speed  and  energy,  since  in 
one  year  from  that  date  they  were  complete.  One  readily 
perceives  the  need  of  such  speed.  It  was  employed  not 
merely  that  the  benefits  of  Sutton's  bequest  should  reach 
those  for  whom  it  was  meant  at  the  earliest  moment, 
but  doubtless  in  a  much  greater  degree  because  the 
Governors  were  anxious  to  place  their  trust  out  of  reach 
of  further  attack  or  change  of  mind  in  high  quarters. 
A  Foundation  already  completely  in  being,  was  obviously 
safer  than  one  whose  details  were  still  in  the  future. 

Another  Assembly  was  held  on  Dec.  10  of  that  year, 
and  the  number  of  the  Brothers  was  completed  up  to 
eighty.  We  do  not  know — owing  to  the  loss  of  the  com- 
mittee book — at  what  moment  the  Founder's  Tomb  was 
commissioned.  A  year  for  the  completion  of  such  a  work 
was  certainly  little  enough,  and  it  is  possible  that  it  had 
been  put  in  hand  from  the  time  of  the  midsummer 
Assembly.  We  find  a  minute  at  this  Assembly  to  the  effect 
that  Captain  Barnabie  Rich,  one  of  the  first  four  Brothers 
elected,  was  to  be  absolutely  dismissed,  being  a  married 
*  Now  the  Brothers'  Library. 


THE  BROTHERS'  LIBRARY. 


REFECTORY    STOOLS    (C.    1500). 


THE   FIRST   GOWNBOY  211 

man  ;  but  a  gift  of  £20  was  at  the  same  time  made  to  him 
by  reason  of  his  good  service  formerly  done.  Richard 
Clark  was  also  struck  off  the  list  with  a  gift  of  £10  (so  it 
seems  to  read)  "  on  the  proviso  that  he  come  not  to  the 
Star  Chamber  to  trouble  the  Lords."  The  possible 
use  of  the  Star  Chamber  as  an  appeal  under  such  circum- 
stances is  instructive. 

An  interesting  minute,  too,  of  this  Assembly  of  Dec.  10, 

1613,  is  that  which  orders  that  "  the  Master,  the  Preacher, 
the  Receiver,  the  Steward,  the  Surveyor,  the  Schoolmaster, 
the  Usher,  shall  have  their  dyett  together  at  one  table, 
the  sum  of  five  shillings  and  eightpence  being  allowed 
weekly  for  the  dyett  and  fyer  of  each  one."     Here  we  have 
the    original    institution    of    the   Masters'    and    Officers' 
dining-table  which  at  a  later  period  obtained  the  title 
of  Brooke  Hall  from  the  fact  of  its  being  held  in  the  room 
which  bore  that  name.* 

No  further  Assembly  of  Governors  was  held  till  July  14, 

1614,  when  thirty-five  scholars  of  the  Foundation  (Gown- 
boys)  were  elected.     The  first,  James  Mullens,  had  been 
elected  in  the  previous  November.     It  was  decided  also 
that   "the  Tombe  which  is  to  be  made  in  remembrance 
of  Thomas  Sutton,  the  Founder,  shall  be  placed  and  sett 
on  the  north  side  (where  it  remains)  of  the  sayde  Chappell 
and  that  the  seates  of  the  poore  Schollers  shall  be  next 
thereto."    They  remained  in  that  position  till  the  migration 
to  Godalming.    On  this  day  also  the  Statutes  of  the  Foun- 
dation, of  which  a  draft  had  been  prepared  by  Mr.  Serjeant 
Moore  and  Mr.  Coventry,  were,  by  means  of  copies,  to  be 
submitted  to  the  Lord  Chancellor,  the  Lord  Chief  Justice, 
and  Baron  Altham  for  their  opinions  and  comments. 

In  the  interval  between  this  assembly  and  the  next 
(Dec.  3)  several  events  of  great  interest  occurred.  The 
first  instalment  of  Brothers  were  housed  in  their  quarters 
after  Michaelmas.  On  Oct.  3,  the  schoolmaster  and  usher 
seem  to  have  entered  upon  their  duties.  At  what  time  the 

*  When  the  school  was  removed  to  Godalming  the  Masters' 
common  room  there  retained  the  name,  for  whose  origin  see  a  later 
chapter. 


212        SEQUEL   TO   THE    FOUNDER'S   WILL 

first  Gownboys  slept  in  their  future  home  is  not  recorded, 
but  it  is  perhaps  safe  to  assume  that  by  Founder's  Day 
of  that  year,  Dec.  12,  1614,  the  place  had  made  its  true 
beginning.  Before  we  come  to  that  date,  however, 
we  must  note  that  at  an  Assembly  of  Dec.  3  the  resigna- 
tion of  the  first  Master,  John  Hutton,  who  accepted  the 
living  of  Dunsby  *  in  Lincolnshire,  was  announced,  and 
Andrew  Perne  was  appointed  in  his  place.  The  death  of 
one  of  Button's  two  executors,  John  Lawe,  was  also 
announced,  and  his  place  was  filled  by  Dr.  William  Birde, 
of  Littlebury,  Essex,  probably  a  friend  of  the  Founder. 

On  Dec.  12,  1614,  the  body  of  the  Founder  was  brought 
by  torchlight  from  its  temporary  resting-place  in  the 
church  of  the  Greyfriars  (Christchurch,  Newgate)  to  its 
home  in  the  vault  beneath  the  great  tomb  (not  then 
completed),  borne  thither  on  the  shoulders  of  the  Brothers 
of  the  Hospital. f  The  sermon,  which  was  afterwards 
printed,  was  preached  by  Percy  Burrell,  who  afterwards 
became  Preacher  of  the  Hospital.  It  was  in  this  sermon 
that  Burrell  stated,  amongst  other  facts  connected  with 
Sutton's  life,  that  he  had  it  on  the  authority  of  one  who 
was  still  living,  that  the  Founder  had  intended  himself 
to  be  the  first  Master  of  the  Hospital. 

1594.  Sutton's  estates  at  Hallingbury  and  else- 

where in  Essex  conveyed  to  Sir  F. 
Popham  and  the  Master  of  the  Rolls, 
with  power  to  revoke. 

1610.  Act  of  Parliament. 

1610.  Letters  patent  from  James  I,  for  a  Founda- 

tion of  eighty  old  men  and  forty  boys 
at  Hallingbury  Bouchers  in  Essex. 

1611,  May  11.      Charterhouse   sold    by  Thomas  Howard, 

*  Still  in  the  gift  of  the  Governors. 

t  There  is  an  early  minute  of  the  Governors  which  gives  Captain 
Robert  Barrett  leave  of  absence  for  one  year  to  undertake  something 
in  the  King's  Service — a  fact  which  strengthens  the  probability 
that  he  was  the  Robert  Barrett  who  commanded  the  bark  Toby  in 
the  Armada  fleet.  It  was  not  uncommon  to  give  Brothers  leave  of 
absence  in  the  early  days,  even  to  go  and  serve  with  the  Swedish 
King. 


NECESSARY   DATES 


213 


1611,  June  22. 


1611,  Nov.  1. 
1611,  Nov.  2. 

1611,  Dec.  12. 

1612,  May  28. 

1613,  Feb.  1. 

1613,  Feb.  8. 
1613,  June  23. 


1613,  June  26. 

1613,  June  30. 
1613,  July  1. 

1613,  July  8. 
1613,  Nov.  13. 

1613,  Dec.  10. 

1614,  July  19. 

1614,  after  Sept 
1614,  Oct.  3. 

1614. 

Dec.  3,  1614. 


Earl  of  Suffolk,  to  Thomas  Sutton  for 

£13,000. 
Letters  Patent  from  James  I  authorising 

the   transfer   of  the   Foundation   from 

Hallingbury  to  Charterhouse. 
Sutton's  deed  of  gift. 
Sutton's  will. 

Sutton's  death  at  Hackney. 
Sutton's  funeral  in  Christchurch,  Newgate. 

First  Governors'  meeting. 
The   case  of  Simon  Baxter  v.  Governors 

of  Charterhouse  first  heard. 
Postponed  hearing  of  the  case. 
Baxter  v.  the  Governors  of  Charterhouse 

heard    before    the    Exchequer    Judges. 

Decision  in  favour  of  the  will. 
The    letter    of   Archbishop    Abbott    and 

Dean  Overall,  surveyors  of  the  will  to 

James  I,  offering  £10,000  for  repair  of 

Berwick  Bridge. 
Second     Governors'     meeting    (held    at 

Charterhouse). 
Decision  in  favour  of  the  will  confirmed 

by  Lord  Chancellor. 

The  King's  reply,  accepting  the  £10,000. 
Third  Governors'  meeting.     Appointment 

of  officers.  First  Brothers. 
Fourth  Governors'  meeting.  List  of 

eighty  Brothers  completed. 
Fifth  Governors'  meeting.  Thirty-five 

scholars  elected. 

29.   First  Brothers  housed  in  Charterhouse. 
First    scholars,     Gownboys,     housed    in 

Charterhouse  (?). 
Sutton's  body  buried  under  the  Founder's 

Tomb. 
Governors'  meeting.     Number  of  scholars 

made    up    to    forty.     Nicholas    Gray 

confirmed  as  schoolmaster. 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE  FOUNDER'S  TOMB 

IT  has  seemed  best  to  devote  a  special  chapter  to  a  work 
which,  apart  from  its  great  interest  in  its  connection  with 
Charterhouse,  also  deserves  more  exact  record  as  one  of 
the  masterpieces  of  its  own  period,  and  especially  of  its 
chief  sculptor,  Nicholas  Stone.  The  receipt  which  is  pre- 
served at  Charterhouse  shows  the  signatures  of  Nicholas 
Jonson,  John  Kinesman,  and  Nicholas  Stone,  and  bears 
date  of  Nov.,  1615.  But  an  entry  in  Stone's  notebook, 
now  in  the  Sloane  Museum,  shows  that  payment  had  been 
made  in  May  of  that  year.  It  runs  as  follows  : — 

"  In  May  1615  Mr  Janson  in  Southwark  and  I  did 
set  up  a  tombe  for  Mr  Sottone  at  Charter  Hous  for  the 
wich  we  had  400£  well  paid,  but  the  letell  monement  of 
Mr  Lawes  was  included  the  wich  I  mad  and  all  the  carved 
work  of  Mr  Sutton's  tombe." 

Quite  lately  there  has  been  found  in  our  Muniment 
Room  the  first  design  byNiclolas  Stone  for  the  figure  of 
the  Founder  in  full  armour.  It  is  evident  that  Stone 
abandoned  it  in  favour  of  the  more  picturesque  civilian's 
costume  as  we  now  see  it. 

We  are  not  able  to  judge  from  the  receipt,  however, 
whether  the  tomb  was  nearly  completed  by  the  day  of 
the  Founder's  burial  or  not  till  some  months  later. 

The  contract  for  the  tomb  would  appear  to  have  been 
put  into  the  hands  of  the  well-known  masons'  firm  of  the 
Jansens  (Jonson  or  Johnson  in  English).  The  head  of 

214 


FOUNDER'S  TOMB:   NICHOLAS  STONE.     1615. 


THE    JANSENS    OF    SOUTHWARK  215 

this  firm  was  Nicholas  Jansen,  a  native  of  Amsterdam, 
who,  some  twenty-seven  years  before  this  date,  had  settled 
in  Southwark,*  and  presently  became  a  well-known 
and  prosperous  man  in  his  profession.  He  married  an 
English  wife  and  was  the  father  of  five  sons.  One  of  these 
sons,  there  is  little  reason  to  doubt,  was  that  Gerard  or 
Gheraert  Jansen  who  made  the  bust  of  Shakespeare  at 
Stratford-on-Avon.  There  is  still  less  reason  to  doubt 
that  another  of  the  sons  was  the  Bernard  Jansen  who  was 
several  times  associated  with  Nicholas  Stone  in  the  pro- 
duction of  sculptured  tombs,  and  probably  in  the  case 
of  the  Founder's  Tomb.  Bernard  Jansen  had  a  good 
reputation  in  his  day,  and  he  has  even  been  described 
as  the  architect  of  Audley  Inn  (End)  for  Thomas  Howard, 
Earl  of  Suffolk.  But  it  is  probable  that  he  merely  acted 
as  a  co-operator  under  Thorpe  the  architect  in  actually 
working  the  architectural  details.  Of  John  Kinesman 
I  can  give  no  account.  Nicholas  Stone  does  not  mention 
him  as  having  any  share  in  the  work  of  the  tomb.  I  take 
him  to  have  been  one  of  the  partners  of  the  firm  of  the 
Jansens. 

It  is,  however,  quite  safe  to  assume  that  the  design 
of  the  Tomb  and  the  figures  throughout  are  due  to  Stone, 
who  was  called  in  by  the  Jansens  as  the  most  promising 
sculptor  of  his  day.  Nicholas  Stone  was  a  native  of  Wood- 
bury  near  Exeter,  thought  to  have  been  born  about  1586. 
He  had  been  apprenticed  to  Isaac  James,  and  presently 
had  gone  over  to  Holland,  perhaps  in  the  company  of  one  of 
the  De  Keysers,  who  had  large  shares  in  Portland  quarries. 
He  worked  in  the  studio  of  Pieter  de  Keyser,  who  was  the 
son  of  the  more  celebrated  architect  and  sculptor,  Hendrik 
de  Keyser.  Indeed,  it  can  be  shown  that,  while  Stone 
was  working  with  the  De  Keysers,  the  tomb  of  William  of 
Orange  at  Delft  was  under  their  hands,  and  Stone  not 
improbably  had  a  share  in  it.  That  he  was  held  in  great 
esteem  by  them  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  was  allowed 

*  The  yard  and  workshop  of  the  Jansens  seems  to  have  been 
near  the  Globe  Theatre  to  the  west  of  St  Mary's  Overy,  now  South- 
wark Cathedral. 


216  THE  FOUNDER'S  TOMB 

to  design  the  portico  of  the  Westerkerk  at  Amsterdam  * 
which  Hendrik  built,  and  he  presently  married  a  daughter 
of  the  family.  At  the  time  of  the  Founder's  death  he  was 
in  Holland,  but  had  returned  to  England  before  1614. 
It  is  not  unlikely  that  he  was  summoned  home  by  the 
Jansens  when,  in  1613,  they  received  the  commission  for 
the  Founder's  Tomb. 

Samuel  Redgrave,  in  his  Dictionary  of  English  Artists, 
states  that  Stone  built  the  wing  which  was  now  added 
to  the  old  monastic  church.  There  is  little  doubt  that 
the  tradition  which  he  relies  on  is  correct,  though  I  am 
not  able  to  find  any  original  authority  for  it.  Our  expense 
books  give  only  the  names  of  the  workmen  who  carried 
out  the  work,  and  no  master  mason  (architect)  is  mentioned. 
That  there  must  have  been  one  is  obvious,  and  if  we  had 
the  lost  committee  book  we  should  probably  find  the  order 
both  for  the  Tomb  and  the  new  wing  and  aisle  under  one 
head. 

It  is  somewhat  notable  that  visitors  to  the  Chapel 
have  often  been  struck,  in  looking  at  the  three  open 
arches  which  divide  the  new  wing  from  the  old,  with  the 
resemblance  to  the  style  of  Inigo  Jones  in  the  strap  work 
and  ornament,  as  well  as  in  the  general  feeling  of  the  whole. 
But  it  seems  that  Inigo  Jones  was  away  in  Italy  at  the 
time  when  the  changes  in  the  Chapel  were  put  in  hand. 
And  the  association  between  Inigo  Jones  and  Nicholas 
Stone,  which  afterwards  united  them  in  so  much  work  in 
London,  had  hardly  yet  begun — yet  it  may  have  already 
begun.  At  all  events,  either  Stone  had  already  come  under 
the  influence  of  Inigo  Jones,  or  he  brought  with  him  from 
Holland  details  which  Inigo  Jones  had  also  assimilated 
from  the  same  source. 

Smythe,  in  his  History  of  Charterhouse,  commenting 
on  the  choice  of  a  place  for  the  tomb  by  the  Governors 
(doubtless  by  advice  of  Stone),  says  that  a  worse  position 
could  not  have  been  found  as,  owing  to  the  darkness,  it 

*  I  am  unable  to  find  at  the  present  day  any  trace  of  Stone's 
work  in  the  Westerkerk.  The  church  dates  from  1610  and  the 
following  years,  and  corresponds  to  Stone's  sojourn  in  Holland. 


THE   FOUNDER'S   TOMB  217 

could  not  be  seen.  And  remembering  that  the  window 
at  the  east  end  which  now  lights  it  from  above  did  not 
exist  till  after  1824,  one  is  tempted  to  agree  with  Smythe. 
But  one  has  to  ask  oneself  what  other  position  could  have 
been  found.  There  is  absolutely  no  wall  space  for  it  in 
the  older  part  of  the  Monks'  Church,  and  one  has  mentally 
to  reconstruct  the  whole  Chapel  as  it  stood,  after  Stone's 
addition  of  the  second  wing,  to  realise  the  fact  that,  beyond 
the  site  which  was  actually  chosen,  there  was  only  one 
other  which  was  possible.  This  would  have  been  exactly 
in  the  centre  of  the  north  wall  (the  outer  wall  in  that  day) 
between  the  two  windows  (now  set  back  into  the  present 
north  wall  of  the  third  bay),  and  exactly  opposite  to  the 
middle  arch  of  the  arcade.  This  would  have  been  a  far 
finer  position,  and  would  have  given  to  the  Tomb  a  most 
impressive  effect,  dominating  the  whole  Chapel.  But 
perhaps  questions  of  expediency  in  seating  the  congre- 
gation affected  the  choice.  And  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  Tomb  would  still  have  been  ill  seen  in  consequence 
of  the  blinding  effect  of  the  windows  on  either  side.  There 
was  but  one  remedy — namely,  that  which  was  applied 
in  1824 — of  lighting  the  Tomb  by  a  window  at  the  east 
end.  It  is  very  hard  to  understand  how  this  method 
could  have  escaped  Stone  himself  or  the  Governors  of  the 
day.  The  Tomb  and  the  seats  of  Gownboys  must  have 
been,  at  all  times,  in  semi-darkness.  The  light  upon  the 
Tomb  from  the  east  window  above  it  is  now  excellent, 
and  enables  us  to  realise  the  richness  and  beauty  of  a  work 
which  has  no  superior  in  its  own  immediate  period  and 
country. 

It  is,  of  course,  no  part  of  our  task  to  criticise  the  style 
of  Art  to  which  this  Tomb  belongs  from  the  purist  point 
of  view — to  compare  that  style,  for  example,  with  the  lovely 
fragments  of  Gothic  sculpture  which  Time  has  left  us, 
or  with  the  masterpieces  of  Early  Italian  Renaissance. 
All  that  we  need  say  is,  that  there  are  few  tombs  of  its 
date  in  England  which,  either  in  the  general  effect  or  in 
the  individual  details,  are  so  impressive  and  so  satisfactory. 
We  might,  indeed,  most  of  us  prefer  that  the  poor  emblems 


218  THE   FOUNDER'S   TOMB 

of  corruption — the  death's  head  and  the  scythe,  in  which 
that  age  took  such  delight — had  been  left  out,  but  here  our 
objections  end.  One  is  at  once  struck  by  the  sense  of  pro- 
portion which,  apart  from  its  fine  colour  and  quaint  detail, 
gives  such  dignity  and  stateliness  to  the  work.  It  is 
essentially  an  architect's  design  at  a  time  when  fine  pro- 
portion was  still  the  first  aim  of  architecture.  And  its 
colour  reaches  richness  and  sombre  harmony  by  the 
employment  of  the  natural  colour  of  marbles,  though 
"  pictures,"  as  the  accounts  call  them,  i.e.  painted  marbles 
or  stone,  are  not  absent.  Through  successive  tiers  of 
statues  and  reliefs  and  heraldries  the  eye  is  brought  down 
till  it  rests  upon  the  sleeping  figure  of  the  Founder. 

The  account  presented  by  the  firm  of  Jansen  to  our 
Governors  enables  us  to  identify  all  the  figures  and  reliefs 
with  three  exceptions,  presently  to  be  noted.  On  the 
highest  point  we  find  the  virtue  of  Charity  personified 
under  the  well-known  symbol  of  a  woman  carrying  a  child, 
and  the  companion  virtues  of  Hope  and  Faith  (holding 
a  book)  are  seen  at  a  lower  stage.  Two  small  "  putti," 
nude  children,  carrying  the  one  a  spade,  the  other  an 
inverted  torch,  symbolise  we  learn,  labour,  and  rest.  But 
two  females  figures  nearest  to  the  wall  are  undescribed. 
One  of  them  (left)  carries  a  cornucopia,  the  other  (right)  an 
object  which  appears  to  be  a  nest  of  young  birds.  If  this 
be  so  I  should  interpret  them  as  plenty  and  want  or  riches 
and  poverty,  the  birds  having  an  allusion  to  the  "  two 
young  pigeons "  accepted  as  the  offering  of  the  poor. 
Strangely  enough  the  very  important  feature  of  the  bas 
relief  in  the  upper  portion  of  the  Tomb  is  not  accounted 
for.  This  relief,  which  is  an  admirable  piece  of  work, 
shows  us  a  preacher  in  a  pulpit  with  two  rows  of  figures 
in  black  gowns  and  white  collars  of  the  period,  whose  strange 
attitudes  are  evidently  intended  to  express  deep  emotion. 
Behind  them  are  standing  figures  in  civil  costume,  intended 
perhaps  to  suggest  the  Governors,  officers,  and  persons 
interested  in  the  Hospital.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  there 
is  no  sign  of  any  young  persons  or  boys  of  schoolboy  age 
— a  fact  which  suggests  again  the  belief  that  the  Brothers 


THOMAS    SUTTON— JOHN   LAWE  219 

were,  in  a  Public  interpretation,  the  main  feature  of  Sutton's 
trust.*  There  is,  by  the  way,  a  curious  tradition  at 
Charterhouse  that  this  relief  represents  Sutton  himself 
preaching  to  his  first  Brothers.  The  tradition  shows  a 
fine  scorn  of  dates  and  facts.  As  a  soldier,  Sutton  had  no 
place  in  a  pulpit,  and  had  especially  provided,  it  would 
seem,  for  a  Preacher.  But  Sutton  was  dead  nearly  two 
years  before  any  congregation  of  Brothers  met  in  Charter- 
house. The  relief,  we  may  feel  sure,  simply  presents, 
in  sculptor's  shorthand,  the  idea  of  the  religious  nature 
of  Sutton's  Foundation  under  the  general  picture  of  a 
sermon  to  the  Brothers. 

In  the  lowest  compartment  we  have  a  tablet  of  black 
marble  with  the  epitaph,  which  reads  as  follows  : — 

Here  lieth  buried  the  Body  of  Thomas  Sutton,  Esquire, 
at  whose  only  costs  and  charges  this  Hospital  was  founded, 
and  endowed  with  large  possessions  for  the  relief  of  poor 
men  and  children  :  he  was  a  gentleman  born  at  Knayth 
in  the  County  of  Lincoln  of  worthy  and  honest  parentage  : 
he  lived  to  the  age  of  seventy-nine  years  and  deceased  the 
12th  of  December  1611. 

This  tablet  is  held  at  the  corners  to  left  and  right  by 
two  "  supporters  "  of  two-thirds  life  size,  in  half  armour. 
They  are  called  in  the  account  merely  the  "  two  Captaynes  " 
— but  once  more  we  find  some  writers  assuring  us  they 
are  Sutton's  two  executors.  John  Lawe  (who  was  a  civilian 
and  a  lawyer)  and  Richard  Sutton.  The  view  is,  of  course, 
quite  without  value,  and  we  may  again  feel  sure  that  their 
presence  there  is  merely  symbolic  of  Sutton's  once  pro- 
fession as  a  soldier,  an  indication  needed  to  complete  the 
sculptor's  meanings,  since  the  sleeping  figure  beneath  is 
given  to  us  in  quiet  civilian  robes,  f  Thus  we  are  shown 
the  two  sides  of  the  Founder's  life. 

Concerning  that  figure — very  simple  and  very  expressive 
and  wholly  worthy  both  of  the  great  Founder  and  the 

*  It  will  be  noticed  that  Bacon,  in  his  letter  of  protest  to  James, 
had  said  but  little  of  the  school  half  of  the  Foundation, 
t  See  previous  page  on  the  earlier  design  in  armour. 


220  THE    FOUNDER'S  TOMB 

great  sculptor — we  may  at  once  say  that  as  a  portrait  or 
likeness  of  Thomas  Sutton  we  must  not  demand  too  much 
of  it.  It  is,  like  so  many  monumental  effigies  of  its  time, 
the  presentment  of  a  general  ideal  which  we  find  running 
throughout  them,  rather  than  an  attempt  at  individual 
portraiture.  At  the  time  of  Button's  death  Stone  was 
probably  not  in  England,  nor  is  it  likely  that  he  had  ever 
set  eyes  on  the  living  face  of  the  Founder.  We  do  not, 
moreover,  know  of  any  portrait  of  Sutton  made  in  his 
lifetime  save  one  *  which  was  little  likely  to  be  known  of 
or  used  at  that  time.  Stone  was  probably  content  to  make 
a  general  statement  of  a  dignified  old  man  in  the  civil 
dress  of  his  day,  nor  did  the  fashion  of  the  day  in  funeral 
effigy  demand  anything  more  exact. 

At  this  point  it  may  be  convenient  to  step  aside  to 
speak  on  this  question  of  the  portraits  of  our  Founder. 
The  best  known  of  these  is  the  full  length  which  hangs 
on  the  east  wall  of  the  Great  Hall.  This  picture  was 
painted  by  order  of  the  Governors  in  the  year  1657.  The 
minute  runs  as  follows  : — 

"  October  9,  1657.  We  do  hereby  order  that  the 
Founder's  Picture  be  drawn  at  large  and  set  up  in  the  great 
chamber  where  the  Governors  use  to  sit  and  that  the  Arms 
as  they  are  now  in  the  great  seal  of  England  together 
with  the  respective  Arms  of  the  Governors  in  a  circle 
encompassing  the  same  be  drawn  also  at  large  and  set  up 
in  the  Great  Hall  over  the  Master's  Table."  [The  last 
portion  of  this  minute  does  not  seem  to  have  been  acted 
upon.] 

Sutton  had  been  dead  fifty-five  years.  For  the  last 
ten  years  of  his  life  he  had  lived  in  great  retirement  and 
had  quite  ceased  to  be  seen  and  known  in  places  of  public 
resort.  The  artist  to  whom  the  commission  was  given 
could  never  have  seen  him,  could  hardly  even  have  known 
any  one  who  could  describe  the  Founder  as  he  looked  in 
life,  even  if  such  description  ever  were  known  to  prove 
of  much  use  to  a  portrait  painter.  The  artist  must 
have  fallen  back  upon  the  effigy  on  the  Tomb.  And, 
*  Now  at  Goclalming. 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE   FOUNDER  221 

indeed,  when  we  examine  the  portrait  in  question,  we  find 
no  reason  to  dissent  from  this  view.  There  is  an  immo- 
bility and  unreality  in  the  face  which  is  quite  explained 
by  the  circumstances  of  its  production.  There  is  a  fine 
full-length  mezzotint  of  it  by  John  Faber,  the  younger, 
made  in  1754.  The  plate  seems  to  have  yielded  few  really 
fine  impressions,  and  these  are  now  very  rarely  seen. 
It  is  in  its  worn  and  ordinary  state  common  enough,  but 
has  been  seriously  retouched.  A  half-length  mezzotint 
by  the  younger  Faber  also  exists.  I  have  never  seen  a 
really  fine  impression  of  it.  The  full-length  portrait  which 
hangs  on  the  landing  in  the  Master's  Lodge  was  made  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  with  slight  alterations,  from  the 
portrait  of  1657  in  the  Great  Hall,  and,  once  more,  is  of 
no  evidence.  There  is  quite  a  population  of  engraved 
portraits  of  the  Founder,  most  of  them  designed  for  book 
illustrations,  and  all  of  them  derived,  in  some  degree  at 
least,  from  the  Great  Hall  or  Master's  Lodge  versions. 
I  have  never  seen  one  of  these  which  has  any  claim  to 
respect,  either  as  a  work  of  art  or  as  a  portrait. 

In  the  Town  Hall  next  the  Stonebow  Arch  at  Lincoln, 
hangs  a  portrait  which  bears  the  name  of  Thomas  Sutton. 
It  has  the  Charterhouse  Arms  in  the  corner — not,  of  course, 
an  evidence,  since  that  kind  of  addition  merely  shows 
that  the  person  who  placed  them  there  was  satisfied  to 
accept  the  identity.  The  portrait — which  appears  to  have 
been  given  at  an  earlier  date  than  the  painting  of  our 
Great  Hall  picture — has  no  resemblance  to  any  of  the 
portraits  of  Sutton,  and  is  without  value.  From  time  to 
time  ostensible  portraits  of  Sutton  come  into  the  market, 
but  they  have  proved  to  be  copies  of  less  or  more  merit 
from  the  Great  Hall  portrait,  with  one  exception. 

That  exception  must  now  be  mentioned.  About  the 
year  1884-85  Messrs.  Pearson,  the  art  dealers  of  Coventrv 
Street,  purchased  the  panelling  and  contents  of  a  house 
in  Stoke  Newington  which  was  to  be  demolished.  The 
panelling  had  been  painted  or  whitewashed.  But  on  the 
back  of  one  of  the  panels  was  found  pasted  a  memorandum, 
somewhat  mutilated,  which  recorded  the  fact  that  the 

Q 


222  THE   FOUNDER'S   TOMB 

portrait  on  the  face  of  the  panel  was  that  of  Thomas 
Sutton,  Founder  of  Charterhouse.     It  ran  thus  : — 

"  Thomas  Sutton  born  in  Lincolnshire  1532  died  1611. 
He  purchased]  the  Charterhouse  for  13000£  an[d]  founded 
a  hospital  for  the  relief  of  indigent  men  and  children. 
Painted  by  Rubens.  J.  H.  Bonell  [or  Bovell]  Jan.  12 
[the  year  is  worn  away]." 

Though  the  record  is  of  a  later  date,  the  portrait  is 
evidently  of  about  the  time  required,  namely,  the  last 
years  of  Elizabeth  or  early  years  of  James.  And  remem- 
bering the  connection  of  Sutton  with  Stoke  Newington, 
we  find  it  no  small  increase  of  the  probability  that  the 
memorandum  on  the  back,  clearly  placed  there  lest  the 
identity  of  the  portrait  should  by  and  by  be  forgotten, 
is  trustworthy  (except,  of  course,  as  to  the  authorship). 
It  is  certainly  a  portrait  from  life,  and  not  a  plagiarism 
from  a  statue  or  from  a  tradition.  The  writer  of  this 
book,  after  going  very  carefully  at  the  time  into  the 
circumstances,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  we  have 
here  the  one  authentic  portrait  of  our  Founder  which 
exists.  If  it  be  not  so,  there  is  no  other.  The  portrait 
now  hangs  in  the  Hall  of  the  School  at  Godalming. 

If  one  is  asked  how  it  came  that  Sutton  had  escaped 
having  his  portrait  painted  in  an  important  fashion  by 
any  of  the  capable  men  who  have  handed  down  to  us 
the  appearance  of  such  men  of  the  day  as  Gresham,  Dr. 
Caius,  Nicholas  Bacon,  and  many  and  many  another, 
one  can  only  answer  that  it  is  consistent  with  the  unostenta- 
tious, simple  character  of  the  man. 

The  descriptions  of  his  personal  appearance  in  Herne 
and  other  writers  are,  one  is  forced  to  suppose,  mainly 
imaginary. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  EARLY  DAYS  OF  BUTTON'S  HOSPITAL 

THE  Brothers  entered  upon  their  heritage  after  Michaelmas, 
1614,  some  few  months  before  the  Foundation  Scholars 
(Gownboys)  made  their  appearance.  It  is  to  be  noted 
as  indicating  to  some  extent  the  type  of  man  for  whom 
the  Brotherhood  was  designed,  that  in  the  first  list  of 
Brothers  a  large  proportion  are  "  Captains."  Of  these 
not  a  few  bear  naval  names,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  some  of  these,  as  well  as  those  who  were  captains  by 
land,  had  come  in  contact  with  Sutton  either  in  his  capacity 
as  Master  of  Ordnance  or  as  one  who  had  interests  in 
Merchant  Venture.  The  absence  of  all  description  in  our 
Hospital  records  makes  it  hard  in  most  cases  to  assert  an 
identity,  but  when  we  come  to  such  names  as  Captain 
George  Fenner,  Robert  Barrett,  Winter,  Lawson,  Hakluyt, 
we  feel  that  we  are  not  dealing  with  mere  coincidence. 
Many  others  there  are  whose  surnames  agree  with  those 
which  we  find  in  the  Navy  records.  It  is  very  likely  that 
many  of  the  twenty-five  brothers  who  were  nominated  at 
the  first  assembly  were  Sutton's  own  choice.  It  may  be, 
too,  that  Suffolk  had  some  voice  in  suggesting  men  who 
had  served  England  well  in  the  hours  of  her  need  and  were 
now  left  high  and  dry  to  beg  then*  bread  in  their  old  age. 

The  first  name  on  the  list  of  Brothers  is  that  of 
Captain  George  Ffenner  (Fenner  or  Fennar).  There  is 
little  reason  to  doubt  that  this  is  that  great  seaman  whose 
best  action  made  a  landmark  in  our  naval  history.  He 
was  one  of  a  great  family  of  sailors,  either  natives  of 
Chichester  or  at  least  Sussex  men,  of  whom  no  less  than 

223 


224     EARLY  DAYS   OF   SUTTON'S   HOSPITAL 

four  held  commands  in  the  fleet  against  the  Spanish 
Armada ;  but  of  these,  though  he  did  not  ever  obtain  the 
rank  of  Admiral  like  his  cousin  Thomas,  none  stands  so 
high  as  a  seaman  as  George  Fennar.  He  was  of  the  type 
of  John  Hawkins  rather  than  Francis  Drake — half  buc- 
caneer, half  naval  officer,  but  wholly  patriot.  We  hear  of 
him  first,  dimly,  in  his  youngest  days  as  having  made  an 
expedition  to  the  Gold  Coast  about  1558.  Then,  in  1566, 
when  Hawkins  had  fitted  out  an  expedition  for  Guinea 
and  when,  on  the  protest  of  De  Silva,  Hawkins  was  stopped, 
we  find  Fennar  in  command,  doubtless  of  the  same  expe- 
dition, but  with  a  solemn  injunction  from  the  Crown  that 
he  should  not  visit  the  Indies,  nor  injure  any  of  the  Queen's 
subjects,  or  do  anything  against  the  King  of  Spain.  With 
these  orders  Fennar  started  southwards  with  three  ships, 
to  find  himself  treated  by  the  Portuguese  as  a  pirate  (not 
without  show  of  reason)  in  the  southern  seas.  He  barely 
escaped  them  at  Santiago  off  the  Cape  de  Verde  Isles  by 
cutting  his  cables  and  making  for  the  Azores.  Here, 
separated  from  his  consorts,  and  alone  in  his  little  ship  the 
Castle  of  Comfort)  he  was  innocently — so  he  said — following 
up  a  Portuguese  ship  to  borrow  a  cable,  when  he  was  set 
upon  by  a  Portuguese  galleon  of  400  tons  and  two  caravels. 
He  held  his  own  somehow  all  that  day,  but  next  morning 
four  more  caravels  had  come  up.  By  superior  gunnery 
and  seamanship  he  beat  them  off  all  that  day,  and  they 
hauled  off  at  night.  When  the  third  morning  broke  the 
Castle  of  Comfort  had  escaped. 

Naval  historians  rank  this  as  the  first  great  example 
of  an  English  gunnery  action,  soon  to  be  followed  by  so 
many  others,  but  by  none  more  masterly  than  that  of  George 
Fennar  of  the  Azores.  Of  the  results  of  the  expedition — 
to  the  shareholders — we  have  no  record.  For  the  next 
twelve  years  Fennar  was  "  trading  "  with  Holland.  His 
views  of  trading  were  unhampered  by  the  shackles  of 
international  law.  We  hear  of  his  bringing  in  two  French 
ships  into  Portsmouth — much  aggrieved,  moreover,  when 
his  Government  made  him  give  them  up — and  at  a  later 
date  again  he  is  made  to  restore  French  prizes  taken  off 


GEORGE   FENNAR  225 

La  Rochelle.  But  when  the  Spaniards  and  the  Flushingers, 
whose  views  of  commerce  were  much  as  his,  from  time  to 
time  pillaged  his  ships  he  was  full  of  protests  which  availed 
him  not.  However,  when  the  Great  Armada  was  expected 
and  England  needed  her  best  seamen,  Robert  Dudley, 
Earl  of  Leicester,  placed  him  in  command  of  the  galleon 
Leicester  (called  after  him),  one  of  the  two  largest  private 
ships  in  the  fleet.  In  the  months  before  the  great  arrival 
he  was  specially  told  off  with  his  cousin  Thomas  (in  the 
Nonpareil]  to  patrol  the  coast  of  France  for  vessels  running 
between  Spain  and  Holland.  But  when  the  Armada  came 
he  was  back  with  his  division  (Francis  Drake's)  and  played 
a  gallant  part  in  the  three  great  naval  actions  of  Portland 
Bill,  the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  Gravelines  which  saved  England 
and  which  most  Englishmen  hardly  know  by  name.  Then, 
the  danger  past,  Fennar  is  found  back  at  his  old  enterprises, 
sometimes  on  private  venture  service,  sometimes  employed 
by  Cecil.  He  surveys  the  port  of  Boulogne  for  the  latter, 
and  is  with  Essex  in  the  Island  Expedition,  and  then,  in 
1597,  when  Essex,  Suffolk,  and  Ralegh  were  sent  to  blockade 
Ferrol  and  destroy  the  Spaniards'  ships,  the  Queen,  through 
Cecil,  inserted  a  singular  clause  into  the  orders  :  "  As  we 
have  had  good  experience  of  the  faith  and  judgment  of 
our  servant  George  Fenner,  we  require  you  for  any  con- 
sultation concerning  any  matter  to  be  attempted  at  sea 
to  call  him  to  your  council  and  hear  his  mind."  It  is 
clear  enough  that  if  George  Fennar  had  been  a  man  of 
title  he  would  have  been  Lord  High  Admiral.  As  it  was  a 
few  years'  lapse  was  to  see  him  penniless.  Two  years 
later,  when  England  was  full  of  the  coming  of  the  fresh 
Armada,  it  was  once  more  to  her  George  Fennar  that  the 
old  Queen  and  Cecil  looked.  He  was  sent  in  the  Dread- 
nought to  cruise  off  Brest  and  watch  the  mouth  of  the 
Channel.  But  he  had  to  put  back  to  Plymouth  for 
provisions  and  stores.  Spinola,  a  seaman  worthy  to  be 
named  with  Blake  and  Nelson,  seized  the  chance  and  ran 
out  with  his  six  galleys.  The  news,  slow  of  travel,  reached 
London  too  late.  Cecil  despatched  a  messenger  in  hot 
haste  to  Plymouth,  to  tell  Fennar  that  Spinola  was  at 


226    EARLY  DAYS   OF  BUTTON'S  HOSPITAL 

La  Hogue  with  his  galleys.  "  Tarry  not,  good  George,  but 
do  the  best  you  can,  for  we  would  be  very  glad  these 
might  be  catched  or  canvassed  [foiled].  .  .  .  You  are  a 
wise  man  and  have  experience  to  use  stratagems."  At 
noon  that  day  Fennar  weighed  anchor  and  was  gone,  his 
Dutch  allies  lumbering  after  him  three  hours  later.  He 
reached  La  Hogue  to  learn  that  Spinola  had  gone  thence 
before  Fennar  left  Plymouth.  The  brilliant  sailor  of 
Spain  ran  past  Howard  and  Leveson  posted  at  intervals 
to  intercept  "  the  baggages,"  as  Cecil  called  them,  and  was 
in  the  Scheldt,  while  Fennar  was  crowding  all  sail  off 
Le  Havre.  It  was  a  failure  none  of  Fennar's  making,  but 
the  mockery  which  long  clung  to  the  coming  of  the  Invisible 
Armada  was  a  sad  end  to  a  great  career.  Old  and  dis- 
appointed he  is  heard  of  no  more  at  sea.  The  Dictionary 
of  National  Biography  suggests  that  he  may  have  died 
about  the  time — but  there  is  little  doubt  that  he  lived  to 
find  his  haven  at  last  in  Charterhouse  in  1617  or  1618.  It 
is  a  striking  fact  that  to  him  alone  *  was  accorded  the 
honour  of  burial  in  the  Chapel  itself.  He  was  borne 
thither  on  the  shoulders  of  the  Brothers,  some  of  them 
his  old  comrades  in  arms. 

I  have  dwelt  at  some  length  on  George  Fennar  as 
typical  of  the  kind  of  man  that  Sutton  and  his  first 
Governors  seemed  to  have  in  view  for  the  Foundation. 
But  there  were  others  who  deserve  some  brief  mention. 
Another  Armada  name  is  that  of  Captain  Robert  Barrett. 
He  is  probably  or  possibly  the  man  who  commanded  the 
Toby  of  250  tons,  100  sailors,  fitted  out  by  the  City  of 
London  against  the  Armada.  And  that  same  Captain 
Robert  Barrett  of  the  Toby  was  perhaps  the  "  Mr.  Barrett "  f 
who  was  master,  under  John  Hawkins,  of  the  Jesus  at 
San  Juan  de  Ulloa,  destroyed  in  the  treacherous  attack  by 
Don  Francisco  de  Luxan.  Of  Captain  Lawson  we  only 
know  that  he  found  it  hard  to  be  second  in  command  on  a 

*  This  special  honour  can  hardly  have  been  due  to  the  fact 
alone  that  his  name  came  first  on  the  list  of  men  appointed  to  Sutton's 
Hospital,  since  that  might  have  been  mere  accident,  implying 
nothing.  The  exceptional  honour  was  doubtless  due  to  the  excep- 
tional distinction  of  the  man. 

f  See  Kingsley's  Westward  Ho  ! 


THE    FIRST    BROTHERS  227 

new  deck,  for  on  July  6,  1615,  he  is  reported  to  the 
Governors  for  behaving  "  very  contemptuously  against  the 
Master,"  and  the  Governors  thought  "  the  faulte  ...  so 
verry  fowle "  that  they  "  respitted "  the  matter  till  a 
later  assembly.  Another  of  these  early  Captaynes — John 
Gascoyne — after  various  efforts  to  rescue  him  from  debt, 
is  reported  as  in  prison,  whence  he  makes  application  to 
the  Assembly  for  his  "  daily  dyett."  Another  Brother, 
Robert  Beale,*  a  little  later,  in  1636,  is  recorded  as  having 
had  a  year's  leave  of  absence  on  the  King's  service  to 
become  Lieutenant  of  the  Merhonneur  in  the  expedition  of 
1635 — an  appointment  which  shows  him  to  have  been  no 
mean  seaman.  For  that  ship.,  of  800  tons,  built  about 
1570,  was  still  one  of  the  finest  in  the  English  Navy.f  It 
was  not  uncommon  in  the  first  forty  years  of  the  Hospital 
for  Brothers  to  get  leave  to  take  active  service  for  a  season. 
There  are  records  of  men  who  joined  the  Swedish  King — 
Gustavus  Adolphus.  One  of  these  perished  "  in  the  over- 
throw at  Revel  " — i.e.  one  of  the  unsuccessful  attempts  in 
the  long  siege.  Another  dies  at  the  siege  of  Breda  in  1643. 
A  Brother  was  expelled  for  joining  the  King  against  the 
Parliament ;  another  for  a  similar  offence  (the  proclivities 
of  the  place  were  assuredly  Royalist).  One  Calton  was 
put  out,  being  convicted  of  misprision  of  treason.  Another 
for  coining.  Altogether  the  Masters  of  those  days  must 
have  had  no  easy  task  in  keeping  order  amongst  a  set  of 
men  who  brought  in  with  them,  some  of  them,  the  swash- 
buckling ways  of  the  parts  about  Fleet  Street  and  Shoe 
Lane.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  Masters  succeeded  one 
another  in  somewhat  rapid  sequence  at  that  time. 

We  get  a  glimpse  of  one  of  the  inner  tragedies  of  the 
place  from  the  records  concerning  one  Captayne  Bell, 

*  But  on  April  21,  1642,  the  same  Robert  Beale  with  Gabriel 
Marston  and  Robert  Davys,  having  absented  themselves  without 
permission  of  the  Governors  or  Master  in  his  Majesty's  service 
on  the  late  Northern  Expedition,  found  the  Governors'  Assembly 
of  a  different  temper,  and  were  refused  all  concessions. 

t  Her  real  name  was  the  Mary  Honora,  which  soon  became 
the  Mere  Honneur,  the  Mer  honneur,  and  even  the  Merit  Honneur. 
She  had  carried  the  flag  of  Suffolk  at  the  siege  of  Cadiz  and  of  Essex 
in  the  Island  Expedition. 


228     EARLY  DAYS  OF  BUTTON'S  HOSPITAL 

whose  conduct  to  the  Master  (Francis  Beaumont)  was  such 
that  the  Governors  sentenced  him  on  February  27,  1622, 
to  be  expelled  unless  he  made  apology  on  his  knees  before 
the  Master  in  the  Great  Hall  in  presence  of  all  the  officers 
and  Brothers.  Two  years  later,  on  July  9,  1624,  he  had 
failed  to  comply  and  was  put  forth.  But  perhaps  he  soon 
found  that  poverty  in  a  garret  was  harder  than  what  had 
been  asked  of  him  in  the  Hospital,  and  we  find  his  name 
back  on  the  list.  We  do  not  know  if  the  condition  was 
insisted  on — one  hopes  that  the  turbulent  old  offender  was 
spared  the  indignity. 

Here  and  there  a  man  loses  his  place,  being  found  to  be 
a  married  man — as  Sir  Robert  Wingfield,  one  of  those 
Knights  whom  James  had  created  in  the  Great  Chamber 
years  before.  The  decree  against  marriage  ran  throughout 
the  Hospital  and  applied  alike  to  all  who  lived  inside  the 
walls.  We  read  of  a  Preacher  (William  Ford,  1618) 
displaced  thereby.  The  Master  might  not  be  married.* 
And  even  the  Master  Cooke  in  early  years  lost  his  place 
for  matrimony.  So  early  as  October  28,  1615,  the 
Governors  issued  an  order  that  "  no  woman  or  stranger 
might  lodge  in  the  Hospital."  There  were,  however,  two 
matrons — there  were  no  nurses  till  1791 — so  probably  they 
had  to  lodge  out.  I  am  not  able  to  find  the  dates  at  which 
these  monastic  institutions  began  to  die  out  under  the 
inroads  of  matrimony. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  absence  of  most  civilising  influences, 
life  in  the  Brothers'  quarters  must  have  been  something 
of  a  Bear-garden.  We  find  orders  by  the  Governors 
against  drunkenness — any  one  guilty  of  it  was  to  be  sent 
out  till  his  case  could  be  considered.  Some  years  later 
expulsion  in  such  a  case  was  made  absolute.  There  was 
grumbling  and  complaining  ;  the  Butler  was  charged  with 
keeping  a  squirt  to  mitigate  the  strength  of  the  beer 
(spelt  "  Bear ").  Into  all  these  things  the  Governors 
inquired  with  minute  care  but  without  often  finding  a 

*  The  restriction  proved  helpful  when  Richard  Steele,  undaunted 
by  any  question  of  fitness,  applied  to  be  made  Master.  The  existence 
of  poor  "  Prue "  saved  the  situation.  The  Governors  fell  back 
on  the  statute  of  celibacy. 


THE    STATUTES  229 

verdict  for  the  plaintiffs.  Indeed,  it  may  here  be  said 
that  from  first  to  last  along  the  300  years  which  have 
passed  over  the  Foundation  the  minute-books  are  evidence 
of  the  thoroughness  with  which  the  Governors  have  watched 
over  the  interests  of  their  trust.  One  is  amused,  for 
example,  to  find  in  this  early  period  how,  after  a  debate  on 
some  burning  question  on  the  constitution  of  the  Hospital 
a  Committee  of  Bishops,  Judges,  and  Lords  settle  down  to 
consider  what  is  to  be  done  with  the  dripping  (sewett). 
And  this  is  merely  a  typical  example  out  of  many. 

A  very  suggestive  order  was  that  which  the  Governors 
found  it  necessary  to  pass  on  Feb.  26,  1622,  by  which  it 
was  enacted  that  none  of  the  Brothers  of  the  Hospital 
"  shall  wear  any  weapons,  long  hair,  coloured  boots,  spurs, 
or  any  coloured  shoes,  feathers,  or  any  Ruffian-like  or 
unseemly  apparel,  but  such  as  becomes  Hospital  men  to 
wear."  Also  no  Brother  might  presume  to  wear  his  hat 
in  presence  of  the  Master  except  at  dinner. 

It  was  sound  wisdom  on  their  part  to  allow  some  time 
to  pass  before  crystallising  their  experience  into  statutes. 
For  the  first  twelve  years  or  so  they  were  content  to 
frame  orders  and  to  consider  their  policy  as  need  arose. 
It  must  be  owned  that,  to  judge  from  the  minute-book, 
they  had  soon  collected  a  useful  body  of  evidence  as  to 
what  was  needed  to  produce  chaos  or  order  in  such  insti- 
tutions. It  can  easily  be  understood  that  the  sudden 
bringing  together  of  eighty  old  men  of  broken  fortune  and 
free-lance  life  should  have  resulted  in  the  admission, 
amongst  the  better  type,  of  some  of  the  flotsam  and  jetsam 
of  those  troubled  times.  Twelve  years  of  experience 
probably  taught  both  Governors  and  Master  most  of  the 
situations  which  were  likely  to  arise,  and  by  1627  they 
had  been  able,  with  the  aid  of  the  Attorney-General,  the 
Bishop  of  Exeter,  and  Sir  William  Boyd,  to  draft 
Statutes  which  were  sealed  by  the  seal  of  the  Governors 
on  June  21,  and  received  the  signature  of  Charles  I.  They 
remained  the  Statutes  of  the  Foundation  up  to  the  year 
1872,  when  the  new  scheme  came  into  force. 

One  may  pause  here  to  note  that  on  June  28,  1619, 


230    EARLY  DAYS   OF  BUTTON'S  HOSPITAL 

Francis  Bacon,  Lord  Verulam,  became  a  Governor,  for 
the  administering  of  the  Trust  which  he  had  fought  so 
hard  to  destroy.  But  on  June  25,  1621,  occurs  the  painful 
minute  which,  after  much  preamble,  declares  that — 

6 

"  the  said  right  honourable  ffrancis  Lord  Verulam  Viscount 
St  Albans  having  on  the  third  of  May  1521  been  by  the 
High  Court  of  parliament  adjudged  that  from  henceforth 
hee  should  for  ever  be  uncapable  of  any  office,  place,  or 
employment,  etc.,  etc.  .  .  .  The  Governors  .  .  .  for  the 
causes  aforesaid  with  one  assent  and  consent  remove  the 
said  Right  Honourable  Francis  Lord  Verulam  ...  of 
and  from  the  place  of  a  Governor,  etc.,  etc." 

The  same  year  which  saw  the  sealing  of  the  statutes 
contains  the  quaint  order,  more  monastic  in  its  spirit  than 
even  the  rule  of  the  monastery,  since  women  had  been 
buried  within  the  Cloister  in  the  days  of  the  monks — that 
no  woman  or  womankind  should  be  buried  in  Charter- 
house either  in  the  Chapel  itself  or  in  the  new  burial 
ground,  the  plot  of  ground  within  the  boundary  wall  on 
the  north  which  had  been  consecrated  in  1616  (adjoining 
Master's  Garden). 

Perhaps  the  most  noticeable  point  in  the  Statutes  of 
1627  is  the  change  in  the  definition  of  the  status  of  the 
Brothers.  We  surmise  that  already  the  Governors  had 
found  some  difficulty  in  excluding  from  the  Hospital  men 
who  did  not  reach  the  social  standard  which  had  been 
intended.  The  Statute  now  ran  as  follows  : — 

"  that  none  should  be  holden  qualified  for  the  place  unless 
they  be  gentlemen  by  descent  and  in  poverty  ;  souldiers 
that  have  borne  arms  by  sea  or  land  :  merchants  decayed 
by  pyracy  or  shipwreck  :  or  servants  in  houshold  to  the 
King  and  Queen's  Majesty." 

Upon  this  definition  the  Brothers  continued  to  be  elected 
until  1642,  when  the  first  note  of  the  coming  spirit  of 
democracy  is  sounded  and  we  find  the  following  minute  : — 

"  Upon    hearing    the    words    of   the    Letters    Patent 


CH4.PEL   TOWER    FROM   MASTER'S   LODGE. 
1512. 


1611,  1642,  1872  231 

[June  22,  1611]  touching  the  quality  of  the  poor  people  to 
be  chosen  and  finding  the  words  to  be  in  general  for  poor 
aged  maimed  or  impotent  people :  It  is  therefore  ordered 
and  declared  that  the  orders  and  statutes  formerly  made 
under  common  seal  for  limitation  of  what  sort  and  qualities 
the  poor  men  shall  be,  shall  not  be  any  rule  of  limitation 
to  the  Governors  for  choosing  of  pensioners  but  that  the 
direction  given  by  the  Letters  patent  be  henceforth 
followed  according  to  the  true  meaning  thereof." 

In  other  words,  the  Governors  fell  back  upon  the 
general  terms  employed  in  the  Letters  Patent  of  1611, 
ignoring  and  setting  aside  the  Constitution  of  the  Brother- 
hood as  decided  on  by  the  first  Governors  in  1613,  which 
had  been  emphasised  and  sanctioned  by  the  Statutes  of 
1627,  which  had  received  the  Royal  assent.  The  latter 
fact,  indeed,  was  not  likely  to  carry  much  weight,  but  far 
otherwise,  in  the  turning  year  of  1642.  It  was,  by  the  way, 
on  this  same  afternoon  of  April  21,  1642,  that  the  com- 
mittee decided  what  to  do  with  the  dripping. 

It  is  convenient  at  this  point  to  insert,  for  ease  of 
comparison,  the  qualifications  of  the  Brotherhood  as 
defined  under  the  scheme  of  1872,  approved  by  the  Charity 
Commissioners. 

"  The  Poor  Brothers  shall  be  deserving  men  of  good 
character,  widowers  or  unmarried,  in  decayed  circum- 
stances, being  or  having  been  officers  in  the  Army  or 
Navy,  Clergymen,  Merchants,  or  persons  engaged  in 
trading,  professional,  agricultural,  or  other  similar  occupa- 
tions, who  have  become  reduced  by  misfortune  or  accident 
without  their  own  wilful  default,  and  who  shall  be  not 
less  than  sixty  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  appointment, 
unless  in  any  special  case  the  Governors  shall  see  fit  to 
relax  the  restriction  as  to  age  in  favour  of  a  candidate 
otherwise  duly  qualified,  who  may  have  become  incapaci- 
tated by  illness,  accident,  or  infirmity  from  exerting  him- 
self for  his  own  maintenance.  Provided  that  no  person 
who  shall  be  blind  or  helpless  from  infirmity  of  mind  or 
body  shall  be  eligible  for  appointment. 

"  No  person   shall   be  eligible  for  appointment  as  a 


232    EARLY  DAYS  OF  SUTTON'S  HOSPITAL 

Poor  Brother,  or  shall  be  capable  of  retaining  such  appoint- 
ment who  shall  be  or  become  possessed  of  or  entitled  to  the 
clear  yearly  income  of  £60  *  or  property  of  that  annual 
value." 

The  minute-books  give  us  no  means  of  judging  what 
effect  the  decision  of  the  Governors,  in  1642,  had  upon  the 
character  of  the  Foundation  for  the  next  eighteen  years 
till  the  Restoration.  No  doubt  the  *'  Captains "  whose 
names  we  now  read  were  of  a  slightly  different  type. 
The  Captains  who  came  to  Charterhouse  doubtless  now 
wore,  of  their  own  choice,  sad-coloured  vesture  and 
featherless  hats.  The  men  of  Cadiz  and  of  the  Armada 
had  ceased  from  troubling.  The  soldiers  of  Gustavus  were 
at  rest.  The  new  Captains  and  Lieutenants  were  doubt- 
less those  who  had  fought  at  Edgehill  and  Marston  Moor, 
at  Newbury  and  Naseby,  and,  later,  at  Dunbar  and 
Worcester,  or  who  had  served  at  sea  under  the  flag  of 
Blake  or  Monk.  For  the  present,  at  any  rate,  their  interests 
were  as  carefully  guarded  as  those  of  their  forerunners. 
But  the  times  were  out  of  joint,  and  evil  days  were  to 
depress  the  Brotherhood  for  a  season. 

The  Chairman  of  the  Governors,  William  Laud  (every 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  since  1611  has  filled  that  post, 
except  between  1645  and  1660,  when  all  bishops  were  got 
rid  of  from  the  board)  was  not  present  at  that  assembly. 
He  had  been  in  the  Tower  since  March  1  of  the  previous 
year.  But  he  presently  nominates  a  Gownboy,  and  there 
is  evidence  that  the  order  book  must  have  been  taken  to 
him  in  the  Tower,  since  one  order  of  Nov.  22,  1642,  bears 
his  unmistakable  autograph.  But  after  that  date,  till 
his  death  on  Tower  Hill  in  January,  1645,  he  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  allowed  any  further  share  in  the  govern- 
ment of  Charterhouse.  This  is  not  hard  to  explain,  for  we 
find  in  1643  that  Parliament  itself  stepped  in  and  took  in 
hand  some  of  the  internal  affairs  of  the  place.  On  Jan.  25 
of  that  year  the  Schoolmaster,  Robert  Brooke,  was  expelled 
as  a  sequel  to  a  resolution  by  a  Committee  of  the  House  of 

*  Since  raised  to  £100. 


Commons,   who  had  sequestered    him  for   "  certen    mis- 
demeanors." 

Brooke's  misdemeanour  was  his  avowed  adherence  to 
the  Royalist  cause,  and  his  having  impressed  his  views 
upon  his  pupils,  two  of  whom  were  the  poets  Richard 
Crashaw  and  Richard  Lovelace.  A  month  or  two  later,  -, 
March  7,  1643,  we  find  that  Daniel  Tuttevill,  the  Preacher, 
is  expelled  by  an  order  of  the  House  of  Commons,  his  place 
being  filled  by  a  divine  named  Thomas  Foxley.  The 
organist  suffered  a  like  fate,  and  his  office  seems  to  have 
been  for  the  present  suppressed.  We  read,  too,  presently, 
of  a  Brother  expelled  for  having  joined  the  King  against 
the  Parliament.  These  steps  are  reflected  in  the  names 
of  the  Governors  who  gradually  took  the  place  of  those 
of  the  earlier  Royalist  type.  Laud  perished  in  1645. 
Before  the  end  of  the  year,  Matthew  Wren,  Bishop  of  Ely, 
and  John  Williams,  Archbishop  of  York,  were  removed 
for  "  certain  causes  known  "  (this  became  the  formula) ; 
while  William  Juxon,  Bishop  of  London,  on  the  plea  of 
infirmity,  though  he  presently  hunted  the  best  pack  of 
hounds  in  England  (so  says  the  enthusiastic  Whitelocke), 
had  resigned,  and  no  bishops  remained  upon  the  board. 
Sir  John  Finch,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  had  been  removed  as 
early  as  1641.  The  empty  places  were  filled  by  men  of 
the  Parliamentary  party.  Manchester  and  Lord  Howard 
of  Escricke  joined  the  board,  from  which  both  of  them  were 
themselves  to  be  removed  when  the  rift  between  them- 
selves and  Cromwell  had  grown  deep.  One  by  one  all  or 
most  of  the  moderates  were  removed,  resigned  or  died. 
The  names  of  Essex,  Oliver  St.  John,  John  Selden,  William 
Lenthall  (speaker  of  the  Long  Parliament),  Sir  Harry  Vane, 
Lord  Fairfax,  and  Bulstrode  Whitelocke  represent  clearly 
enough  the  older  Parliamentary  party.  But  after  1550 
we  read  the  names  of  John  Bradshaw,  the  regicide — I 
cannot  find  that  he  ever  attended  a  meeting  or  took  any 
share  in  administering  his  trust — Oliver  Cromwell,  Charles 
Fleetwood,  Sir  Arthur  Heselrigge  (so  spelt  by  him  in  the 
book),  General  Philip  Skippon,  and  Protector  Richard  Crom- 
well— truly  an  historical  document  this  minute-book  of  ours. 


234    EARLY  DAYS   OF  BUTTON'S  HOSPITAL 

To  return  to  1645.  The  miseries  of  the  Civil  War  had 
already  gone  far  to  ruin  many  a  farmer,  and  the  necessities 
of  life  had,  as  always,  risen  in  proportion.  A  deficit  of 
£1500  was  recorded  in  the  funds  of  the  Hospital.  The 
reserve  chest  was  called  upon  for  £500,  and  the  salaries  of 
officers  and  servants  were  diminished  all  round.  The  diet 
of  the  Brothers  and  Scholars  was  also  greatly  reduced — 
more  days  of  abstinence  were  inserted,  and  all  feast  days 
abolished,  save  that  of  Dec.  12,  Founder's  Day.  These 
measures  perhaps  met  the  immediate  pressure,  but  it  is 
clear  that  for  many  years  the  Foundation  suffered  severely. 

It  would  seem,  too,  that  as  the  stress  of  the  situation 
between  King  and  Parliament  grew  fiercer,  the  Governors 
fell  away,  for  a  year  or  two,  from  the  keen  interest  which 
they  have  at  all  other  times  shown.  For  two  years,  from 
May,  1648  to  April,  1650,  there  are  no  Governors' 
assemblies  recorded,  but  after  the  death  of  the  King  they 
occur  again  with  frequency.  In  1650  we  find  that  Parlia- 
ment once  more  takes  the  affairs  of  Charterhouse  into 
view  and  provides  for  its  management,  with  the  following 
resolution  which  I  find  entered  in  the  minute-book  : — 

"  Die  Mercurii  17  Aprilisl650.  Resolved  by  the  Parlia- 
mentthat  such  of  the  present  Governors  of  Sutton's  Hospitall 
who  have  subscribed  the  Engagement  or  the  major  part  of 
them  doe  proceed  on  in  all  the  business  of  the  Hospitall 
untill  the  Parliament  takes  further  order. 

"  HEN  SCOBELL, 

"  Chi8  Parliament." 

That  same  winter,  on  Dec.  9,  1650,  his  Excellency 
Oliver  Cromwell,  "  Captain  Generall  of  ye  forces  raised  by 
Parliament,"  is  made  a  Governor  in  place  of  the  Earl  of 
Manchester  removed.  He  attended  in  all  six  meetings 
during  the  two  and  a  half  years  in  which  he  remained  a 
Governor.  None  of  these  meetings  had  in  them  anything 
outside  of  the  ordinary  routine  of  business  except  that,  at 

*  One  of  the  iron-bound  chests  in  which  the  early  Governors 
kept  their  ready  cash  is  now  in  Charterhouse  Museum.  It  has 
always  been  traditionally  known  as  Thomas  Sutton's  chest. 


CROMWELL   AT   GOVERNORS'    MEETINGS    235 

the  meeting  of  Jan.  19,  1652,  the  Governors  passed  a 
stringently-worded  order  that  any  Brother  proved  guilty 
of  drunkenness  should  lose  his  position — a  provision  which 
reminds  us  that  Cavalier  and  Roundhead  must  have  still 
possessed  something  in  common.  On  none  of  these 
occasions  did  Oliver  sign  the  book — one  remembers  his 
growing  hatred  of  writing  in  any  shape.  But  once  Oliver 
Cromwell  came  down  to  Charterhouse  perhaps  in  wrath. 
He  was  not  a  member  of  the  Standing  Committee,  and  yet 
on  this  occasion  he  attended  one  of  its  meetings.  It  is 
easy  to  see  the  reason  why,  for  on  that  date  occurs  the 
following  entry  in  the  minutes  of  Committee. 

"Oct.  8,  1651.  Present  William  Lenthall,  Oliver 
Cromwell,  Sergeant  Glyn,  Sir  Henry  Vane,  John  Selden, 
John  Gurdon.  Wee  the  said  committee  doe  likewise  think 
fitt  that  the  Arms  of  the  late  King  standing  above  the 
Gates  and  in  several  other  places  of  the  said  Hospitall  be 
forthwith  pulled  down  and  defaced  and  that  the  Arms  of 
the  Commonwealth  be  putt  up  in  the  same  places  at  the 
Costs  and  Charges  of  the  said  Hospitall." 

This  time  we  find  Oliver  Cromwell's  signature  in  the 
book.*  It  would  seem  indeed  that  the  Governors  had 
been  meeting  in  the  Governors'  Room  with  the  Royal 
Arms  above  their  heads  in  the  Great  Fireplace,  and  Oliver, 
who  had  attended  a  full  Governors'  meeting,  had  not  failed 
to  notice  the  incongruity.  The  order  was  doubtless 
obeyed,  but  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  offending 
panel  was  preserved  by  some  official  and  replaced  at  the 
Restoration,  and  that  we  look  to-day  on  the  very  panel 
which  excited  the  wrath  of  the  Captain-General.f 

When  Cromwell  became  Protector  he  resigned  his 
place  as  Governor,  recommending  General  Philip  Skippon 
as  his  successor.  Skippon  was  duly  elected.  It  is  easy 
to  see  why  Oliver  resigned.  Apart  from  the  heavy  pre- 
occupations which  more  and  more  beset  him,  he  would, 

*  But  after  careful  comparison  of  the  signature  with  those  in 
the  British  Museum  I  find  it  hard  to  reconcile  them,  and  I  am  doubt- 
ful if  Oliver  wrote  it.  It  may  have  been  added  by  the  chairman 
or  clerk  as  a  necessary  evidence  of  Oliver's  wish  and  attendance. 

t  The  arms  are  of  James  I. 


236       EARLY   DAYS   OF  SUTTON'S  HOSPITAL 

have  found  himself,  when  he  came  to  Charterhouse,  sitting 
at  the  same  table  with  Vane  and  St.  John,  Lenthall  and 
Heselrigge,  and  others — men  who  were  now  avowedly 
unfriendly  to  his  action  and  policy.  It  would  have  been 
courting  difficult  situations  on  a  field  where  he  would 
have  had  no  advantage  of  position  over  them.  But  he 
did  not  forget  Charterhouse,  nor  yet  his  own  methods  of 
handling  affairs.  For  in  the  following  year  he  seems  to 
have  sent  in  a  request — we  can  guess  what  sort  of  form  it 
would  have  taken — that  the  Governors  should  elect  as  a 
Gownboy  one  John  Sharwell,  son  of  Mary  Sharwell,  a 
widow. 

We  can  read  between  the  lines  of  a  memorandum 
signed  by  Sir  Harry  Vane,  Oliver  St.  John,  and  Lord 
Essex  on  behalf  of  the  Governors — the  date  is  June  5, 
1654 — in  which,  after  a  short  preamble,  they  say  that  they 
have  assured  themselves  of  the  fitness  in  all  respects  of 
John  Sharwell  to  become  a  Poore  Scholler  *  (Gownboy) 
on  the  recommendation  of  the  Lord  Protector.  And  they 
therefore  advise  that  he  should  have  the  next  vacancy 
after  the  admission  of  the  persons  already  nominated  and 
waiting.  They  guard  themselves,  however,  by  the  following 
clause  :  "  Provided  that  this  shall  not  be  prejudice  or 
hinderance  to  said  Governors  of  said  Hospu  in  making  of 
future  Elections  or  be  drawne  into  President  [precedent]." 
John  SharwelPs  name  appears  in  the  admission  list  for 
June  5,  1654,  and  the  Governors  confirm  the  election  by  a 
minute  of  their  assembly  of  June  19.  But  it  is  clear  that 
this  kind  of  reserved  acceptance  of  his  will  was  not  to  the 
taste  of  the  Protector,  for  one  year  later  is  found  a  letter, 
quoted  by  Carlyle  in  his  Life  and  Letters  of  Cromwell,  in 
which  he  once  more  imposes  his  wish — this  time  practically 

*  By  a  strange  error  the  latest  historian  of  Charterhouse  describes 
this  as  a  request  by  Cromwell  for  the  admission  of  "  a  young  man 
described  as  a  Poore  Scholler  as  a  Pensioner."  The  words  "  Popre 
Scholler  "  are,  of  course,  the  equivalent  of  a  Gownboy  or  Foundation 
Scholar.  The  same  writer  speaks  of  a  diplomatic  answer  returned 
by  the  Governors,  in  which  they  compliment  the  Protector  on  the 
care  and  humanity  he  had  shown  as  a  Governor.  These  words 
do  not  occur  in  any  record  accessible  to  me.  They  arc  not  on  the 
minutes. 


OLIVER    CROMWELL  237 

a  command — on  the  Governors.  Nor  does  he  even  address 
them,  but  sends  his  order  to  Secretary  Thurloe.  The 
letter  runs  as  follows  : — 

"To  Mr.  Secretary  Thurloe, 

"  Whitehall,  28  July,  1655. 

"  You  receive  from  me,  this  28th  instant,  a  petition 
from  Margaret  Beacham,  desiring  the  admission  of  her 
son  into  the  Charterhouse ;  whose  husband  was  employed 
one  day  in  an  important  secret  service,  which  he  did 
effectually,  to  our  own  great  benefit,  and  the  Common- 
wealth's. I  have  wrote  under  it  a  common  reference  to  the 
Commissioners  ;  but  I  mean  a  great  deal  more  :  That  it  shall 
be  done  without  their  debate  or  consideration  of  the  matter. 

And  so  do  you  privately  hint  to .     I  have  not  the 

particular  shining  bauble  for  crowds  to  gaze  at  or  kneel 

to,  but To  be  short,  I  know  how  to  deny  Petitions 

and,  whatever  I  think  proper  for  outward  form,  to  '  refer  ' 
to  any  officer  or  office,  I  expect  that  such  my  compliance 
with  custom  shall  be  looked  upon  as  an  indication  of  my 
will  and  pleasure  to  have  the  thing  done.  Thy  true 
friend, 

"  OLIVER  P." 

Whether  this  characteristic  letter  ever  reached  the 
Governors  is  unknown  to  us.  The  name  of  Beacham  does 
not  occur  among  the  admissions  of  this  period,  and  there 
is  not  a  word  in  the  orders  or  minutes  of  the  Governors  on 
the  point.  So  far  as  anything  is  on  record  it  was  never 
before  them.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that,  if  a 
discussion  took  place  in  which  the  Protector's  proposal 
was  negatived,  such  discussion  (to  judge  by  the  case  of 
James  II  presently  to  be  noted)  might  have  been  intention- 
ally suppressed  from  the  minutes.  And  with  this  incident 
the  Protector  and  Charterhouse  part  company  for  ever. 

At  the  Restoration  it  was  inevitable  that  the  Parlia- 
mentary Governors  who  had  displaced  the  Royalists  should, 
in  turn,  yield  place  to  others.  One  or  two  were  removed, 
St.  John,  Skippon,  Hesilrigge,  and  one  or  two  others  were 

R 


238    EARLY    DAYS   OF  BUTTON'S   HOSPITAL 

offered  the  opportunity  of  resigning  and  did  so.  Man- 
chester Howard  of  Escrick,  the  Bishop  of  Ely,  Lord 
Northumberland  were  restored  to  office,  and  a  period  which 
must  have  brought  with  it  constant  anxieties  was  at  an 
end.  In  saying  this,  however,  it  is  only  just  to  remark 
that,  save  in  the  period  of  greatest  dislocation  from  1645-50, 
the  management  of  the  Foundation  was  as  complete  and 
painstaking  as  at  any  other  period. 

And  from  that  time  forward,  with  one  or  two  exceptions, 
presently  to  be  mentioned,  Sutton's  Hospital  touches  out- 
side History  only  through  the  great  historical  names  which 
appear  on  the  list  of  its  Governors,  or  through  the  distinction 
of  its  Pensioners  or  of  its  Scholars.  Here  are  the  exceptions. 
On  June  24,  1685,  we  read  the  following  : — 

"  Whereas  James  Duke  of  Monmouth,  a  Governor  of 
this  Hospital  stands  convicted  and  attainted  of  treason 
by  Parliament  by  means  whereof  he  is  becom  uncapable 
to  holde  the  same  place,  wee  doo  therefore  according  to 
the  power  given  us  by  the  letters  patent  of  the  foundation 
of  this  Hospitall  nominate  the  Right  Honourable  Lawrence 
Earl  of  Rochester  Lord  High  Treasurer  to  be  and  continue 
one  of  the  Governors  of  the  Hospital  in  his  stead,"  etc.,  etc. 

The  attainder  had  been  passed  on  June  21,  and  this 
order  of  the  Governors  was  issued  three  weeks  before  the 
battle  of  Sedgmoor.  There  is  a  tradition  at  Charterhouse 
that  some  of  the  portraits  in  the  Master's  Lodge,  which 
include  those  of  Monmouth,  Charles  I,  Buckingham,  and 
Talbot,  were  the  property  of  Anne  Scott,  Duchess  of 
Buccleugh,  Monmouth's  ill-used  wife,  and  that  she  left 
them  in  the  care  of  the  Master,  William  Erskine,  her 
friend.  The  pictures  have  been  known,  one  cannot  say 
how  long,  as  the  Monmouth  pictures. 

Once  more,  and  for  the  last  time,  in  1687,  when  the 
Stuart  dynasty  was  nearing  its  end,  Charterhouse  was 
destined  to  make  History. 

It  came  indeed  strangely  near  to  making  it  in  that 
particular  shape  in  which  the  seven  bishops  actually  made 


JAMES    II    AND    THE    GOVERNORS          289 

it  a  twelvemonth  later.  James  II  nominated,  and  desired 
the  Assembly  of  Governors  to  elect  on  his  nomination  to 
the  Brotherhood,  one  Andrew  Popham,  a  Romanist.  The 
minute  of  the  assembly  of  Jan.  17  in  that  year  runs  as 
follows  : — 

"  Whereas  his  Maty  by  his  two  Lords  hath  nominated 
and  appointed  Andrew  Popham  Gent  to  be  a  pensoner  in 
this  Hospitall  in  his  Matys  ...  in  wich  two  there  is  a 
Clause  that  his  Maty  is  gratiously  disposed  to  dispense 
with  the  sending  any  oath  or  oathes  unto  the  sayd  Andrew 
Popham  or  requiring  of  him  any  subscripton  or  recogniton 
or  other  Act  or  Acts  in  conformity  to  the  doctrine  and 
discipline  of  the  Church  of  England  as  the  same  is  now 
established  wee  are  of  opinion  that  for  the  present  that 
the  admission  of  the  sayd  Andrew  Popham  bee  suspended 
until  wee  shall  have  considered  of  an  applicaton  to  his 
Maty  therein." 

The  minute,  of  course,  gives  no  clue  to  the  discussion 
or  incidents  which  preceded  the  resolution.  But  Macaulay, 
in  his  History,  makes  use  of  a  publication,  An  Account 
of  the  Late  Proceedings  at  Charterhouse,  published  in  1689, 
the  year  after  the  flight  of  James.  That  account,  and 
consequently  Macaulay's  description  of  the  incident,  can 
be  shown  to  be  inaccurate  in  several  points.  On  the  other 
hand,  some  of  its  details  could  only  have  been  supplied  by 
some  one  who  was  present,  and  they  bear  the  impress  of 
truth.  The  question  was  introduced  by  the  Master, 
Thomas  Burnett,  the  man  of  the  quiet  face,  whose  beautiful 
portrait  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  hangs  to-day  in  the  Master's 
Lodge.  He  urged  that  the  election  of  a  Romanist  was 
beyond  their  powers  and  contrary  to  their  constitution  as 
fixed  by  Act  of  Parliament.*  "What  is  that  to  the 
purpose  ?  "  asked  a  courtier  (not  identified)  who  was  a 
Governor.  The  old  Duke  of  Ormond,  who  was  attending 
one  of  the  last  of  his  Governors'  Assemblies,  replied,  "  I 

*  In  1623  or  1024  the  Governors  had  applied  for  an  Act  of 
Parliament  which,  as  we  learn  by  a  minute  of  1624,  had  for  some 
unknown  reason  miscarried.  The  Bill  was  duly  obtained  in  March, 
1627  (Old  Style),  confirming  the  Foundation. 


240     EARLY    DAYS   OF  BUTTON'S  HOSPITAL 

think  it  is  very  much  to  the  purpose.  An  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment," continued  the  Patriarch  of  the  Cavalier  party,  "  is 
in  my  judgment  no  light  thing."  Chancellor  Jeffreys,  the 
King's  worst  adviser,  was  sitting  that  day  at  the  table  in 
the  Governors'  Room,  and  so  were  one  or  two  others  who 
are  likely  to  have  voted  with  him.  But  that  day  and  in 
that  room  the  brutal  Chancellor's  voice  was  no  more  than 
any  other  man's.  When  the  majority  voted  against  the 
admission  of  the  King's  nominee,  Jeffreys  rose  in  fury 
and  walked  out  of  the  Governors'  Room,*  followed  by 
others  of  the  minority,  so  that — says  Macaulay,  following 
"  the  account  "  —  there  was  no  quorum  left,  and  no  formal 
reply  could  be  made  to  the  mandate.  Here,  however, 
Macaulay  seems  to  be  in  error.  The  minutes  of  the  day 
show  that  the  Popham  question  stood  early  in  the  agenda 
paper,  and  that  other  business  was  transacted  after  it. 
Strange  to  say,  the  minutes  of  the  next  meeting  of  Feb.  2 
are  omitted,  perhaps  intentionally.  But  on  June  24 
occurs  a  brief  minute  that  a  copy  of  the  letter  to  the  King, 
now  drawn  up,  be  forwarded  by  the  Registrar  to  Lord 
Middleton,  Chief  Secretary  of  the  State. 

London  rang  with  the  incident  for  some  months. 
Jeffreys  swore — he  could  swear,  it  is  said — vengeance  and 
talked  of  prosecuting  the  Governors  in  the  King's  Bench. 
But  James,  purblind  as  he  was,  with  a  double  measure  of 
that  purblindness  which  always  made  a  Stuart  unable  to 
see  the  simplest  signs  of  the  times,  yet  would  seem  to  have 
felt  that  a  body  of  Governors  which  numbered  in  its  ranks 
the  names  of  Ormond  and  Danby  and  others  to  whom 
his  throne  had  owed  so  much,  and  who,  moreover,  were 
armed  with  a  constitution  sanctioned  by  his  own  father, 
Charles  I,  was  an  ill  body  to  prosecute.  At  any  rate, 
before  James  had  time  to  follow  the  advice  of  Jeffreys,  if 
ever  he  meant  to  do  so,  he  had  other  things  to  think  of. 
No  more  is  heard  of  Andrew  Popham.  It  may  be 
mentioned  here  that  every  Sovereign  since  James  I,  as 
well  as  the  Protector,  has  been  by  accepted  tradition — 

*  Jeffreys   never  again  walked  up  the    Great    Staircase    to    a 
Governors'  meeting. 


THE    BROTHERS  241 

there  is  no  statute  on  the  point — a  Governor  of  Charter- 
house, and  it  has  also  been  the  tradition  to  place  the 
Royal  Consorts  upon  the  roll,  but  Royalties  do  not  take 
any  part  in  the  administration  of  the  Foundation.  On 
no  occasion,  save  in  the  instance  just  recorded,  has  it  been 
necessary  for  the  Governors  to  resist  the  Royal  wish  in 
any  particular. 

From  1611  to  1911  more  than  2,000  Brothers  have 
entered  the  Foundation.  The  House  has  sheltered  many 
men  who  have  done  good  and  even  distinguished  work  in 
life  before  the  evening  came,  but  the  fact,  once  before 
mentioned,  that  no  record  is  preserved  in  our  books  of  the 
antecedents  of  the  nominees,  has  been  unfortunate,  and 
it  deprives  us  of  a  great  deal  of  knowledge  which  would 
be  interesting.  We  find  in  the  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography  only  a  few  records.  But  entry  into  that 
Valhalla  is  not  the  final  verdict.  One  may  quote,  however, 
the  well-known  names  which  reappear  in  every  history 
of  Charterhouse.  Omitting  the  earliest  Brothers  with 
whom  we  have  already  dealt,  the  name  of  Elkanah  Settle 
(1648  to  1724)  comes  earliest  upon  the  list.  It  might 
be  hard  in  these  days  to  collect  a  score  of  men  who  had 
ever  read  a  line  of  his  poetry.  Yet  in  his  day  it  was  fiercely 
debated,  says  Wood,  at  the  universities  whether  he  or 
Dryden  were  the  greater  poet,  the  younger  generation 
inclining  to  Settle.  But  Settle's  success — Betterton  took 
the  leading  part  in  some  of  his  plays,  Cambyses,  for  example, 
now  forgotten— was  not  wholly  one  of  merit.  Politics 
and  poetry  were  a  common,  though  an  impossible,  mixture 
in  those  days,  and  Rochester  and  his  party  set  up  Settle 
against  Dryden  only  to  drop  him  when  they  had  done 
with  him.  Dryden  was  unwise  enough  to  give  him  a 
place  as  Doeg  in  his  Absalom  and  Achitophel.  But  he  made 
a  shrewd  prophecy  when  he  foretold  that  his  rival  would 
one  day  be  writing  plays  for  Bartholomew  Fair.  The 
forecast  came  true  almost  to  the  letter.  Poor  Settle, 
after  holding  the  post — it  is  said  he  was  the  last  to  hold  it — 
of  "  City  Poet,"  is  found  writing  love  ballads  and  poesies 


242       EARLY   DAYS   OF  SUTTON'S  HOSPITAL 

for  maid  servants  at  half  a  crown  the  poem,  and  presently 
he  has  to  act  the  part  at  a  show  of  a  dragon,  in  a  suit  of 
green  leather.  Then  at  last  some  one  takes  pity  on  the 
old  man  of  letters,  rescues  him  from  his  dragon,  and 
nominates  him  to  Charterhouse,  where  he  died  a  year  or 
two  later  (Feb.  12,  1723). 

Alexander  Macbean  (d.  1784),  who  had  helped 
Dr.  Johnson  as  his  amanuensis,  and  had  some  literary 
ability  of  his  own,  ended  his  days  here.  And  so  would, 
if  he  had  not  been  expelled  for  disobedience,  Zachariah 
Williams,  who  comes  within  the  circle  of  Johnson  as 
father  of  that  Miss  Anna  Williams  who,  when  she  lived 
in  Bolt  Court,  so  often  shared  a  cup  of  tea — say,  rather, 
seventeen  cups  of  tea — with  the  great  doctor.  At  the  same 
time  the  Hospital  gave  shelter  to  Stephen  Gray,  who  is 
universally  recognised  as  one  of  the  chief  pioneers  of  elec- 
tricity.* He  was  made  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society 
while  he  was  a  Brother  of  Charterhouse.  In  recent  times, 
Madison  Morton,  who  as  the  author  of  Box  and  Cox  has 
given  the  world  more  harmless  merriment  than  falls  to  the 
lot  of  most  men,  Charles  Macfarlane  (d.  1858),  and  Francis 
Espinasse,  the  friend  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  and  himself  a 
man  of  note  in  his  day,  have  been  amongst  the  Brothers. 

I  have  already  said  that  in  the  early  days  of  the  Hospital 
the  condition  of  comfort  was,  judged  by  the  standard 
of  our  own  day,  not  high.  But  judged  by  the  standard 
of  its  own  day  it  was  probably  in  due  relation  to  that 
which  prevailed  outside.  The  Brothers  looked  after 
themselves  or  had  a  claim  on  the  services  of  a  very  limited 
number  of  men  servants  in  their  ancient  quarters,  which 
had  been  constructed  within  the  fine  old  monastery  barns. 
It  was  not  till  1796  that  "  nurses  "  were  provided  to  attend 

*  Stephen  Gray  demonstrated  before  the  Royal  Society  his 
great  invention.  And  in  the  Courts  of  Charterhouse  he  set  up 
wooden  poles  carrying  silk  thread  (isolated  of  course)  which  success- 
fully transmitted  the  current.  He  had  indeed  proved  his  case. 
It  was,  however,  merely  a  succ&s  d'estime.  Many  years  were  to 
pass  ;  before  his  discovery  was  taken  up  in  practical  shape.  Possibly 
the  old  scientist's  character,  "  particular  and  unamiable,"  did  not 
assist  him.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  he  initiated  the  system  which  has 
changed  the  social  conditions  of  the  earth. 


THE    BROTHERS  243 

to  the  wants  of  the  Brothers.  The  duties  of  these  nurses 
correspond  to  those  of  the  "  bedmakers  "  of  an  Oxford 
or  Cambridge  College.  So,  too,  it  was  left  to  recent 
times  to  provide  the  services  of  trained  matron  and  nursing- 
sister  or  sisters  in  time  of  sickness.  But  all  along  the 
course  of  the  three  centuries  which  have  passed  since  the 
foundation,  the  position  of  the  Brothers  has  been  steadily 
improved,  as  the  records  of  the  Order  Book  prove.  The 
pension  and  allowances  have  been  from  time  to  time 
augmented.  The  original  pension  was  £5  per  annum 
without  further  allowance.  The  last  increase,  in  1909, 
brought  it  to  £36  per  annum  with  an  extra  allowance 
of  35  shillings  per  week  during  the  four  weeks  of  summer 
holiday,  or  £43  in  all,  with  allowances  of  coal  and  light. 
The  diet  has  also  undergone  great  improvement.  In 
1914  the  pension  has  been  increased  to  £40,  or  £47  in  all.* 
But  undoubtedly  the  changes  which  most  affected  the 
conditions  of  living  for  the  better  were  those  which  took 
place  from  the  year  1826  to  the  year  1842  and  onwards. 
These  changes  were,  by  common  consent,  due  to  the  energy 
and  capacity  of  William  Hale,  who  was  Preacher  of  the 
Hospital  from  1823  to  1841,  and  became  Master  in  1842. 
The  old  Brothers'  quarters  were  ordered  to  be  presently 
pulled  down,  and  gave  place  to  the  two  new  courts  known 
as  the  Pensioners'  Court  and  the  Preacher's  Court.  The 
earlier  buildings  had  lain  along  the  west  side  of  what  is 
now  Preacher's  Court,  and  at  the  northern  end  of  the  old 
wing  a  continuation  had  run  diagonally  across  from  south- 
west to  north-east.  In  1826  three  sides  of  the  Pensioners' 
Court,  giving  twenty-eight  sets  of  apartments,  were  com- 
menced. In  1827  the  fourth  side  was  begun,  and  in  the 
year  1828,  the  order  was  given  for  the  building  of  the 
east  wing  of  the  Preacher's  Court.  This  included  a  house 
for  the  Preacher,  who  hitherto  had  lived  outside,  and  there 
is  no  doubt  that  this  departure,  which  was  entirely  due  to 
the  advice  of  Archdeacon  Hale,  very  largely  affected  the 

*  In  1919  the  Governors,  with  the  consent  of  the  Charity  Com- 
missioners, raised  the  total  sum  of  pension  and  allowances  provision- 
ally to  £70  10s. 


244      EARLY  DAYS   OF  BUTTON'S   HOSPITAL 

well-being  of  the  Hospital.  In  1829  the  order  was  given 
to  rebuild  the  west  wing  of  the  Preacher's  Court  (the  old 
quarters),  but  the  work  was  suspended  till  1839.  By  1840 
the  whole  of  the  two  new  courts  had  been  completed. 
The  life  of  the  Brothers  now  followed  very  much  the  lines 
of  life  in  a  college  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  Each  Brother 
lives  in  his  own  room,  which  has  in  it  a  recess  for  a  bed ; 
there  are,  however,  a  few  sets  of  two  rooms  to  each  Brother. 
These  rooms  open  on  to  a  common  staircase — there  are 
sixteen  staircases  in  all — which  are  attended  to  by  nurses. 
A  certain  number  of  rooms  are  set  aside  as  an  infirmary 
for  the  very  infirm  or  sick,  but  each  brother  is  still  nursed 
in  his  own  separate  room  and  not  in  one  general  ward. 
In  other  respects,  as  well  as  in  the  arrangements  of  the 
living  rooms,  the  life  has  its  resemblances  to  that  of  college. 
Regulations  require  each  Brother  to  attend  chapel  either 
in  the  morning  (9.30)  or  evening  (6.0  in  winter,  7.0  in  sum- 
mer) at  choice,*  and  at  11.0  a.m.  on  Sunday,  and  to  attend 
daily  dinner  in  Hall  (2  p.m.).  He  can  always  obtain  leave 
of  absence  for  any  reasonable  purpose.  He  is  free  to  go 
where  he  will  up  to  11  p.m.,  or  by  an  easy  process  of 
extension,  up  to  12  p.m.  He  has  one  month  of  holiday 
(July)  in  each  year  with  full  allowance  beyond  his  pension. 
It  is  in  the  discretion  of  the  Master  to  grant  him  a  further 
extension  up  to  six  weeks  beyond  the  holiday  month  with 
a  minor  allowance  ;  and  further  leave  at  times  without 
that  allowance.  Each  Brother  receives  four  and  a  quarter 
tons  of  coal  a  year,  with  candles.  He  has  also  the  services 
of  a  resident  medical  officer,  matron,  and  nursing  sister. 
He  is  given  chair,  table,  fender,  bed,  carpet,  curtains 
for  his  room,  which,  however,  is  not  otherwise  furnished, 
as  it  is  found  that  Brothers  greatly  prefer  to  bring  in  some 
furniture  of  their  own,  and  also  they  naturally  prefer 
some  exercise  of  their  own  taste  in  their  surroundings. 
Visitors  are  allowed  up  to  10  p.m.  A  Brother  of  Charter- 
house has  a  vote  for  Finsbury  parliamentary  district. 

If  any  one  imagines  that  all  Brothers  are  at  all  times 

*  Up  to   1840  the  regulations  required  two  attendances  daily 
at  chapel. 


THE    LIFE    OF    A    BROTHER  245 

satisfied,  and  that  no  one  ever  grumbles,  he  must  also 
imagine  that  the  Governors  of  Sutton  Hospital  have  secured 
a  succession  of  angels  rather  than  of  old  gentlemen.  The 
Brotherhood  of  Charterhouse  is  not,  any  more  than  any  other 
assemblage  of  similar  human  beings,  free  from  its  percentage 
of  men  who  estimate  their  privileges  not  from  the  point  of 
view  of  what  has  been  given  to  them,  but  rather  of  what 
has  not.  Nor  can  it  be  supposed  that  in  a  gathering  of 
sixty  to  eighty  men  there  should  be  absent  all  examples 
of  men  who  are  not  worthy  of  their  place,  or  who  find  the 
very  small  amount  of  discipline  indicated  by  a  chapel, 
a  hall,  and  a  return  home  at  eleven  or  twelve  at  night, 
an  irksome  degree  of  restriction.  It  is  impossible  to  read 
through  the  many  volumes  of  minutes  and  orders  since 
1614  without  some  amusement.  History — it  is  very 
small  history,  to  be  sure — repeats  itself  over  and  over 
again.  There  are  still,  as  in  1620,  in  each  decade  the  men 
here  and  there  who  believe,  or  say  they  do,  that  the  butler 
metaphorically  keeps  a  squirt  for  watering  the  beer.  The 
Governors  of  to-day  are  called  upon  to  do  much  the  same 
set  of  duties  as  those  which  claimed  the  attention  of  Lord 
Bacon,  William  Laud,  and  Oliver  Cromwell,  of  Walpole 
and  Rockingham,  of  Pitt  and  Fox,  of  Peel  and  Wellington, 
of  Palmerston  and  Russell.  The  interests,  some  very 
great,  some  very  small,  which  have  to  be  guarded  are 
much  the  same.  The  complaints  and  appeals  have  a 
strong  family  likeness.  And  the  rather  too  common  black 
sheep  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  is  of 
much  the  same  colour  as  his  much  rarer  counterpart 
in  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth.  And  here  it  should 
be  said  that  the  proportion  of  the  unworthy  to  the  worthy 
is  very  small.  The  vast  majority  live  honourable  and 
self-respecting  lives,  and  Button's  intention  is  well  fulfilled 
in  them.  For  three  hundred  years  his  Hospital  has  helped 
to  meet  a  great  national  need,  without  ever  receiving 
or  asking  for  one  penny  of  public  money.  The  particular 
class  for  which  it  provides  is  one  for  whom  poverty  has 
very  special  sorrows.  Sutton's  Hospital  may  be  regarded 
as  a  civil  resident  pension  for  gentlemen  of  fallen  fortune, 


246    EARLY    DAYS   OF  BUTTON'S  HOSPITAL 

for  whom  the  State,  in  the  nature  of  things,  cannot  be 
expected  to  provide  either  pension  or  maintenance. 
It  has  done  much  in  its  three  hundred  years  of  existence, 
and  it  is  to  be  deplored  that  since  1880,  owing  to  the 
depreciation  in  land  values — much  of  the  endowment 
depending  on  agricultural  rents — the  number  of  Brothers, 
fixed  by  Sutton  at  eighty,  has  sunk  to  sixty,  and  has 
at  one  time  been  as  low  as  fifty-four.  Owing  to  a  reputa- 
tion, which  has  clung  to  it  from  the  beginning,  of  very 
great  wealth,  it  has  never  since  1611  received  any  legacy 
of  importance,  probably  a  unique  instance  in  the  history 
of  such  institutions.  If  one  of  those  splendid  gifts  or 
legacies  which  from  time  to  time  fall  to  institutions  and 
movements  designed  for  the  relief  of  distress  and  the 
bettering  of  the  lot  of  mankind  should  one  day  come  the 
way  of  Charterhouse,  it  would  be  possible,  once  more,  to 
give  the  benefits  of  the  Hospital  to  the  full  number  of 
eighty,  and  at  the  same  time  increase  the  material  comfort 
of  the  Brothers  in  various  particulars.  The  giver  would 
have,  through  the  evidence  of  the  last  three  hundred  years, 
the  knowledge  that  his  gift  would  be  well  employed  in  the 
relief  of  a  form  of  distress  which  is  not  the  least  acute 
among  the  many  forms  of  suffering  which  human  beings 
can  be  called  upon  to  bear. 


COSTUME    OF   EARLY    GOWNBOYS. 


A   BROTHER. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE    SCHOOL 

SUTTON'S  double  foundation  was  the  outcome  in  part 
of  the  man's  own  personality  and  in  part  of  the  spirit 
of  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  The  Brotherhood  represents 
the  first  of  these  two  forces,  begotten  as  it  was  of  Sutton's 
own  sympathies  for  the  type  of  men  with  whose  lives 
and  distresses  his  own  life  had  brought  him  in  touch, 
while  the  School  Foundation  was  typical  of  that  faith 
in  education  which  the  Renaissance  had  everywhere 
brought  with  it,  and  which  in  England,  especially  in  the 
Post-Reformation  days  of  the  period,  showed  itself  in 
the  frequent  foundations  of  Grammar  Schools  and  Colleges. 
If  in  my  previous  chapter  I  have  at  all  succeeded 
in  showing  that  Sutton's  first  set  of  Governors  knew  and 
rightly  interpreted  his  intentions  with  regard  to  the 
social  class  from  whom  his  Brothers  were  to  be  selected, 
then  I  need  hardly  go  over  the  same  ground  to  show  that 
his  intentions  with  regard  to  the  social  status  of  his  Founda- 
tion Scholars,  "  Gownboys,"  must  have  been  of  like  texture. 
It  must  at  least  be  conceded  that  he  must  have  meant 
that  both  sides  of  his  Foundation  should  be  of  one  caste. 
He  placed  them  both  within  the  same  walls,  to  be  selected 
by  the  same  Governors,  to  worship  in  the  same  chapel, 
to  be  ruled  by  the  same  officers,  served  by  the  same  ser- 
vants, fed  from  the  same  kitchen,  and  even  to  be  tended, 
at  first,  by  the  same  matron.  And  though  experience 
presently  showed  the  necessity  for  some  kind  of  separation 
between  the  Brothers  and  the  Schoolboys,  yet  they  were 
essentially  one  Foundation. 

247 


248  THE   SCHOOL 

At  their  very  first  assembly,  June  30,  1613,  the  Gover- 
nors, it  will  be  remembered,  had  resolved  as  follows : — 

"  Item.  No  children  to  be  placed  there  whose  parents 
have  any  estate  of  lands  to  leave  unto  them  but  onlie 
the  children  of  poore  men  that  want  meanes  to  bringe 
them  up." 

Though  this  order  was  clearly  intended  to  exclude 
the  son  of  any  man  of  assured  estate  or  property,  it 
was  as  clearly  not  intended  to  exclude  the  sons  of  pro- 
fessional men — soldiers,  sailors,  clergy,  doctors,  lawyers, 
etc. — the  straitness  of  whose  means  still  made  them 
"  poore  men "  though  not  of  the  indigent  poor.  And 
this  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  very  first  list  of  Gown- 
boys  elected  on  July  19,  1614,  includes  boys  whose  fathers 
wrote  "  esquire  "  or  "  gent  "  after  their  names.  The 
first  Gownboy  of  all  is  an  instructive  case.  James 
Mullens  was  elected  alone  at  the  first  assembly,  June  30, 
1613,  and  was  the  son  of  a  surgeon  who  either  then  or 
later  was  Surgeon  to  St.  Bartholomew's  and  to  St.  Thomas' 
Hospitals.  But  in  1621  the  Governors  resolve  that  James 
Mullens  is  to  cease  to  be  a  Gownboy  if  it  be  true  that  his 
father  is  possessed  of  £400  a  year.  In  short,  the  quali- 
fication was  very  much  that  which  prevailed  in  similar 
foundations  in  other  great  schools.  It  has  been  often 
urged  that  Charterhouse  is  an  instance  where  the  intention 
of  the  Founder  has  been  perverted  from  the  first,  and  the 
trust  applied  to  a  class  for  whom  it  was  not  meant.  And 
the  words  "  poore  scholler  "  "  poore  men  "  are  quoted 
in  proof  of  this  perversion.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
the  very  body  of  men  who  created  those  phrases  at  their 
first  assembly  gave  us  an  object  lesson  in  their  own  inter- 
pretation of  their  phrases  by  electing  at  that  same  assembly 
James  Mullens,  the  son  of  a  surgeon  of  evident  capacity, 
though  of  small  income,  as  they  believed.*  We  have, 
indeed,  to  remind  ourselves  that  the  word  "  poore  "  was 

*  The  increase  of  the  father's  income  to  £400  a  year  may,  of 
course,  have  occurred — it  probably  did — some  years  after  his  son's 
nomination. 


THE    SCHOLARS  249 

used  at  that  date  in  a  broader,   and    perhaps  a  truer, 
sense  than  that  which  it  has  come  to  have  to-day. 

The  School  Foundation  of  Charterhouse  was  never 
intended  by  its  Founder  for  the  "  indigent  poor  " — as  we 
now  understand  that  phrase,  nor  for  the  poor  of  the  working 
classes,  nor  of  the  artisan  classes,  but  rather  for  the  "  poore  " 
of  quite  a  different  social  rank,  namely,  of  a  rank  corre- 
sponding to  that  whose  needs  were  provided  for  in  Sutton's 
Foundation  for  the  "  poore  Brothers." 

It  may  be  well,  at  this  point,  to  give  a  few  typical 
cases  of  Gownboys  nominated  in  the  years  immediately 
following  the  first  foundation.*  The  instances  in  which 
we  know  the  parentage  of  early  Gownboys  are  few,  and 
even  here  our  knowledge  is  accidental,  and  from  external 
sources,  as  no  record  was  kept  in  the  warrant  books  or 
order  books.  Danyell  Colbye  (1614)  is  son  of  Thomas 
Collbye,  Esq. — the  title  of  Esquire  still  having  a  definite 
social  value  in  that  day.  Joseph  Henshawe  (1624),  after- 
wards Bishop  of  Peterborough,  was  son  of  Thomas  Hen- 
shawe, Solicitor-General  of  Ireland.  Anthony  Lawe  (1614) 
was  nephew  of  John  Lawe,  Sutton's  executor,  and  one  of 
the  first  Governors.  Richard  White  (1619),  son  of  Sir 
Richard  White,  Knighte.  Robert  Bickerton  (1626),  son 
of  a  servant  of  the  Prince  (Charles).  Richard  Crashaw 
(spelt  Crosshow)  the  poet,  1631,  son  of  William  Crashaw, 
a  clergyman.  And  in  1628,  Thomas  Lovelace,  son  of  Sir 
William  Lovelace,  Knight,  of  an  old  Kentish  family, 
was  nominated  on  the  warrant  of  Charles  I.  Sir  William, 
of  Lovelace-Bethersden,  had  been  killed  that  year  at  the 
siege  of  Grolle  in  Holland,  "  after  about  30  years  in  the 
warres,  and  left  his  lady  rich  only  in  great  store  of  Children." 
Thomas  never  came  to  Gownboys,  being,  it  would  seem, 
over  age.  His  brother,  Colonel  Richard  Lovelace,  the 
poet,  and  author  of  To  AUhea  from  Prison,  was  later  in 
the  school  as  an  oppidan. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  quote  further  from  this  early  list. 
Mr.  Bower  Marsh,  in  his  admirable  preface  to  his  list  of 
Alumni  Carthusiani,  says  with   regard  to  the  system  of 
*  These  cases  are  quoted  from  Alumni  Carthiisiani. 


250  THE   SCHOOL 

nominations  from  1613  to  its  abolition  in  1872  :  "  In 
examining  at  the  same  time  the  grounds  on  which  nomi- 
nations have  been  sought  for,  and  the  probable  reasons 
for  which  they  have  been  granted,  the  decision  would  seem 
broadly  to  lie  between  the  claims  of  poverty  and  of 
influence,  and,  in  general,  the  award  to  have  been  carried 
away  by  what  may  be  termed  influential  poverty."  He 
quotes  the  evidence  of  Archdeacon  Hale  before  the  Com- 
mission of  1862 :  "I  should  say  persons  exceedingly 
well  connected  but  really  poor."  This  Commission  and 
evidence,  of  course,  referred  to  Gownboys  of  Archdeacon 
Hale's  period.  My  own  days  in  Gownboys  fell  within 
the  nine  years  from  1856  to  1864,  and  I  should  endorse 
the  statement  of  Archdeacon  Hale.  There  were  boys 
who  were  closely  connected  with  titled  families,  a  few  near 
relations  of  the  Governors  themselves,  sons  of  officers, 
clergymen,  etc.  But  I  cannot  remember  any  of  whom 
it  could  be  said  that,  so  far  as  the  money  qualification  went, 
they  were  unfit  to  receive  the  benefits  of  the  Foundation. 
And  I  may  say  at  once,  after  thirty-three  years'  experience 
of  the  School  since  the  system  of  competitive  scholar- 
ships has  been  introduced,  that  those  scholarships  now  fall  to 
the  sons  of  men  whose  average  income  is  greatly  in  excess 
of  that  which  was  possessed  by  the  parents  of  the  nomi- 
nated Gownboys.  The  reason  is  obvious.  Few  boys 
of  under  fourteen  could  have  a  first-rate  chance  of  obtaining 
an  open  scholarship  on  any  of  the  great  Public  School 
Foundations  unless  their  parents  have  been  in  a  position 
to  provide  them,  for  some  years  previously,  with  an 
expensive  education  at  a  preparatory  school.  The  clause 
which  gives  the  Governing  Body  the  right  to  withhold 
one  of  these  scholarships,  if  a  parent  appears  to  be  too  well- 
to-do  to  justify  his  accepting  the  Foundation  benefit,  does 
not  effectively  meet  the  case.  The  disappearance  of  the 
nomination  system  has,  no  doubt,  played  doubly  into  the 
hands  of  those  who  have,  rather  than  of  those  who  need. 
That  abuses  under  the  old  system  must  have  occurred 
within  the  260  years  during  which  it  lasted  is  a  probability 
which  we  may  well  admit,  but,  so  far  as  can  be  judged, 


PROFESSIONS    AND   TRADES  251 

the  probability  is  even  greater,  that  in  the  vast  majority 
of  cases  Sutton's  bounty  reached  the  men  for  whom  he 
meant  it,  and  to  whom  it  was  a  Godsend  in  educating  their 
children  in  their  own  station  of  life. 

But  however  the  early  Governors  acted  with  regard 
to  the  choice  of  "  poore  schollers,"  their  provision  for  the 
future  of  their  Gownboys  on  their  exit  from  the  School  was 
marked  by  a  bold  common  sense  which  was  not,  however, 
destined  to  survive.  The  boy  who  was  by  acquirements 
and  promise  fit  for  the  University,  and  for  the  professions 
to  which  it  was  an  entrance,  was  to  be  sent  there  with  an 
exhibition.  But  the  boy  who  was  "  unfitt  for  learning," 
or  "  less  apt  for  learning  than  some  are,"  was  to  be  sent 
out  to  a  different  career.  He  was  to  be  "  apprenticed  " 
to  a  solicitor's  office,  to  a  business  or  trade,  or  even  to  a 
handicraft.*  They  were  alive  to  the  fact  that,  even  in 
higher  social  ranks,  a  large  number  of  individuals  are 
born  who  have  no  bent  or  fitness  for  brain  work,  or  even 
clerk's  work,  but  were  designed  by  nature  for  handwork, 
or  a  craft  of  some  kind.  However,  when  a  Gownboy  in 
the  first  days  had  made  his  entry,  he  was  to  go  out  by  the 
door  which  seemed  to  lead  him  to  his  fittest  work  in  life. 
And  so  one  Gownboy  would  go  out  to  end  his  life,  via  the 
University,  as  a  bishop  or  a  judge,  while  his  friend,  who 
had  sat  beside  him  in  Gownboy  Writing  School  or  Hall, 
went  out  to  make  saddlery.  It  sounds  very  pathetic. 
But  it  was  less  pathetic  after  all,  perhaps,  than  the 
occasional  fate  of  a  man  who  was  tempted  out  of  his  true 
path  by  the  high  rewards  that  presently  came  to  be  offered. 
For  the  University  Exhibitions  which  had  begun  at  £20 
had,  by  the  end  of  the  London  days,  become  £80  for  three 
years,  and  £100  for  the  fourth,  with  even  a  further  pro- 
longation. It  is  true  that  the  lump  sum  given  to  an 
"  apprentice,"  i.e.  the  sum  which  might  be  given  to  an 
outgoing  Gownboy  who  was  to  become  a  solicitor,  a 

*  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  word  "  apprenticeship  "  was  used 
in  that  day  not  merely  with  regard  to  trade  or  handicraft,  but  also 
with  regard  to  clerkships,  and  the  like.  At  the  abolition  of  the 
apprentice  system  the  word  "  articled  "  took  its  place  in  the  latter 
instances. 


252  THE   SCHOOL 

soldier,  a  man  of  business,  had  risen  to  £100.  But  the 
University  prize  loomed  larger  still  for  the  parent  whose 
mind  was  not  clear  as  to  his  son's  profession.  The  mischief 
would  have  been  less  if  a  high  standard  had  been  main- 
tained. But  towards  the  end  the  test  was  very  merciful. 
Many  an  exhibitioner  got  through — the  test  was  not 
competitive,  but  to  qualify — with  barely  enough  learning 
to  get  a  pass  degree.  The  change  of  system  since  1872, 
by  which  a  limited  number  only  of  University  Exhibitions 
are  given  by  competition,  has  made  an  improvement  in 
that  respect. 

From  the  very  first  the  Governors  empowered  the 
schoolmaster  (headmaster)  and  the  usher  (second  master) — 
the  office  was  abolished  in  1872 — to  take  pupils  other 
than  Gownboys.  Without  this  provision  it  is  doubtful 
if  the  School  could  have  obtained  the  reputation  which  was 
soon  to  belong  to  it.  For  the  Governors,  at  no  time  before 
1872,  recognised  the  existence  of  any  masters  save  these 
two.  But  the  salary  of  the  schoolmaster  was  £20  per 
annum  and  that  of  the  usher  was  £10.  It  was  not  till 
1658  that  the  headmaster's  salary  was  raised  to  £100  per 
annum.  And  multiply  as  we  may  to  bring  these  salaries 
into  terms  of  modern  money,  we  cannot  obtain  from  them 
a  result  which  shall  make  the  wage  of  a  headmaster  of 
that  day  equal  to  the  wage  of  many  an  assistant  master 
of  to-day  in  the  earliest  stages  of  his  career.  The  re- 
inforcement, therefore,  of  their  slender  salary  by  the 
right  to  take  boarders  and  day-boys  was  not  merely  a  bless- 
ing to  those  men  who  shaped  the  first  famous  Carthusians, 
but  it  was  of  great  value  to  the  School  by  enabling  the 
Governors  to  secure  a  better  type  of  man  for  the  post. 
And,  furthermore,  it  freed  the  schoolmaster  and  usher 
from  an  impossible  position.  Without  that  concession 
they  would  have  been  called  upon — two  men  alone — 
to  teach  forty  boys  ranging  from  the  age  of  ten  to  the  age 
of  eighteen — a  school  in  which  effective  grading  by  age 
or  ability  was  impossible.  The  addition  of  two  or  three 
assistant  masters,  paid  out  of  the  school  fees  of  the  non- 
Gownboys,  alone  made  it  possible.  The  schoolmaster 


THE    MASTERS    OF   THE    SCHOOL  253 

and  usher  were  further  hampered  by  the  untaught  con- 
dition of  many  of  the  nominees,  who  were  pitchforked 
into  the  Foundation  in  such  a  stage  of  ignorance  as  to  make 
the  School  unworkable.  In  the  statutes  of  1627,  therefore, 
the  clause  appears  : — 

"  Nor  shall  any  be  admitted  but  such  as  the  School- 
master shall  find  and  approve  to  be  well  entred  in  Learning 
answerable  to  his  age  at  the  time  of  his  admittance." 

The  difficulty  did  not  disappear,  however.  In  1653 
the  Governors,  finding  that  the  schoolmaster  had  rejected 
certain  nominees,  gave  an  order  that  they  should  be 
admitted  and  specially  instructed — a  condition  which  might 
have  well  driven  the  unhappy  schoolmasters  to  despair. 
The  "  great  damage  and  discouragement "  which  they 
suffered  thereby  was  described  in  an  order  of  the  Governors 
in  1672,  which  ordained  for  the  future  an  entrance  exami- 
nation. 

But  however  great  the  disadvantages  under  which 
the  early  masters  laboured  from  being  called  upon  to 
develop  the  nucleus  of  the  Foundation  into  a  great  School, 
it  is  certain  that  they  came  well  through  the  trial.  The 
School  was  already  well  established  in  its  fame  when 
Addison  and  Steele  were  members  of  it.  It  is  to  be  re- 
gretted that  the  attitude  of  the  Governors  towards  other 
than  Gownboys,  however  right  from  their  point  of  view, 
has  made  it  impossible  for  us  to  trace  or  to  describe  the 
growth  of  the  whole  School  as  a  corporate  body.  No 
complete  list  of  masters,  and  no  complete  list  of  members 
of  the  School  is  found  before  1800.  The  list  of  school- 
masters and  ushers  and  of  Gownboys  alone  is  preserved 
among  our  records.  And  it  follows  from  this  that  our 
list  of  distinguished  Carthusians  is  a  mutilated  list.  Many 
of  the  names  of  boarders  and  day-boys  who  reached  dis- 
tinction are  probably  quite  unknown  to  us,*  the  names 

*  It  is,  for  example,  merely  a  happy  accident  which  enables 
us  to  say  that  Richard,  7th  Earl  Mtzwilliam,  was  a  Carthusian.  In 
the  Library  of  the  Fitzwilliam  Museum  which  he  founded  is  a  small 
pencil  drawing  of  the  statue  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  which  was  given 
in  1759  by  Fitzwilliam,  when  a  boy  at  Charterhouse,  to  Isaac  Cookson 
of  Newcastle. 

S 


254  THE   SCHOOL 

only  of  a  few  of  very  special  fame  emerging  for  us.  It  is, 
however,  plain  to  us,  even  on  this  imperfect  evidence,  that 
the  non-Foundation  portion  of  the  School  contributed  its 
full  share  to  the  honours  of  the  place  from  first  to  last. 
Thus  Richard  Crashaw  (1613-1649)  was  a  Gownboy,  but 
Richard  Lovelace  (1618-1658)  was  an  Oppidan.  Isaac 
Barrow  and  Richard  Steele  (1672-1729)  were  Gownboys, 
but  Joseph  Addison  (1672-1719)  was  an  Oppidan.  So, 
too,  John  Wesley  (1703-1791);  Sir  William  Blackstone 
(1723-1780);  Lord  Ellenborough  (1750-1818);  Baron 
Alderson  (1787-1857);  Bishop  Conn  of  Shirlwall,  the 
historian ;  General  Sir  Robert  S.  S.  Baden-Powell  were 
all  Gownboys  in  the  London  Foundation.  But  Thomas 
Lovel  Beddoes,  the  poet  (1803-1849);  George  Grote, 
the  historian  (1794-1871) ;  William  Makepeace  Thackeray 
(1811-1863,  once  in  Penny's  House,  26-28  Wilderness 
Row,  and  afterwards  with  Mrs.  Boyes,  No.  8,  in  the  Square) ; 
John  Leech  (1817-1864,  in  Churton's  House  in  the  Square) ; 
Sir  Charles  Eastlake,  P.R.A.  (1793-1865);  Sir  Henry 
Havelock  (1795-1857,  in  Stewart's  House) ;  and  Lord 
Alverstone  (in  Saunderites)  were  all  non-foundation  boys. 

The  number  of  Oppidans  before  the  early  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  apparently  never  large.  There 
is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  total  numbers  of  the  school 
ever  exceeded  a  hundred  much  before  that  time,  a  fact 
that  makes  the  list  of  distinguished  Carthusians  the  more 
remarkable.  It  seems  likely  that  many  of  the  non- 
Foundation  boys  either  boarded  outside  or  were  day-boys, 
for  we  find  no  trace  of  anything  like  a  boarding-house 
in  the  earlier  days  of  the  School.  An  elevation  map  of 
the  place  by  Sutton  Nichols,  of  about  the  year  1750,  shows 
that  the  usher  lived  in  rooms  above  the  house  called 
"  Gownboys."  and  certainly  could  have  housed  no  boarders 
there ;  while  the  schoolmaster  lived  in  a  detached  house 
to  the  west  of  the  scholars'  house  which,  if  the  scale  is  at 
all  to  be  trusted,  could  have  had  little  accommodation 
in  it  for  boarders  at  that  day.  And,  indeed,  by  an  appeal 
to  the  Governors,  made  on  June  6,  1773  by  Dr.  Samuel 
Berdmore,  the  headmaster,  we  learn  that,  since  his  appoint- 


NUMBERS   OF   THE   EARLY    SCHOOL       255 

ment  in  1769,  he  had  at  his  own  expense  provided  more 
room,  but  that  the  house  only  accommodated,  and  that 
with  great  difficulty  and  inconvenience,  twenty-three 
boarders.  He  speaks  of  the  straits  he  was  put  to  if  he 
had  sickness  in  his  own  family,  and  suggests  the  raising 
of  the  roof  of  a  building  (we  cannot  identify  this)  in  Chapel- 
Cloister,  and  the  raising  also  of  the  roof  of  the  building 
over  the  washhouse  (this  hardly  can  refer  to  Washhouse 
Court).  He  was  granted  the  sum  of  £160  in  answer  to 
his  appeal.  Here  we  get  at  a  means  of  estimating  roughly 
the  size  of  the  School  in  1769.  There  were  forty  Gownboys 
and  twenty-three  boarders  in  the  Headmaster's  House. 
At  that  time  we  do  not  know  of  any  other  house  which 
took  boarders.  The  number  of  day-boys  is  guesswork. 
But  with  the  staff  of  a  headmaster,  an  usher,  an  assistant 
usher,  and  a  writing-master  (the  latter  non-resident  and 
intermittent),  we  cannot  suppose  the  day-boys  to  have 
been  very  numerous.  The  total  numbers  must  have  been 
considerably  under  a  hundred.  They  had,  we  imagine, 
risen  in  1795,  since  in  that  year  the  Governors  ordered 
that  an  annual  return  of  the  boarders  in  all  the  boarding- 
houses  should  be  made.  And  the  phrase  implies  an  in- 
crease of  boarding-houses,  and  therefore  of  boys.  In  1805, 
at  the  end  of  the  lease  of  the  Physician,  Dr.  Shackleford, 
the  Headmaster,  Dr.  Raine,  was  allowed  to  move  out 
to  his  house,  No.  29,  Charterhouse  Square.  We  know 
from  Horwood's  map  of  1799  the  very  numbering  of  the 
houses  in  the  Square,  and  we  find  that  29  was  at  the 
south-west  corner  at  the  entrance  to  Charterhouse  Street 
(now  Haynes  Street),  a  singularly  unsuitable  position 
for  a  schoolhouse,  one  would  have  thought.  Perhaps 
the  Governors  thought  so  too,  since  in  1807,  at  the  death 
of  Dr.  Hulme,  they  transferred  the  Headmaster  to  his 
house  in  the  Square.  Dr.  Raine  died  in  1811,  and  in  the 
days  of  his  successor,  Dr.  Russell,  began  the  great  increase 
in  numbers  of  which  I  shall  have  to  speak  more  in  detail 
presently. 

The  Governors'  transactions,  which  give  us  so  scanty 
a  knowledge  of  the  housing  of  the  boarders,  are  entirely 


256  THE   SCHOOL 

silent  as  to  any  matters  concerned  with  their  diet,  main- 
tenance, and  manner  of  life.  But  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  they  would  have  been  on  the  same  scale  as  that  of 
Gownboys.  And  for  this  we  have  some  evidence  at  intervals. 
In  the  seventeenth  century,  and  in  a  less  degree  in  the 
eighteenth,  the  standard  of  comfort  represents  a  Spartan 
simplicity,  though  perhaps  not  out  of  proportion  to  that 
which  prevailed  throughout  Society,  and  in  all  public  schools 
of  the  day.  A  Gownboy  rose  at  5  a.m.,  he  had  his  breakfast 
at  8  a.m. — beer,  bread,  and  cheese.  His  dinner  seems  to 
have  been  at  one  period  3  p.m.,  but  afterwards  at  midday, 
with  a  supper  of  bread  and  cheese  and  beer  at  night.  It 
is  to  the  long  intervals  between  meals  that  one  may  attri- 
bute the  system  of  "  Beverage,"  as  it  is  called  in  the  index 
of  the  Governors'  minutes,  whereby  any  boy  could  apply 
between  dinner  and  supper  at  the  butlery  for  a  "  hunk  " 
of  bread — called  a  bevor.*  Tea  and  coffee  in  that  day  were 
luxuries  unknown  to  Gownboys.  John  Wesley,  whose 
schooldays  lay  between  1713  and  1720,  tells  us  that  at 
school  he  had  little  except  bread,  and  not  always  enough 
of  that.  But  the  formal  records  of  the  account  books  give 
us  rather  a  more  liberal  diet  than  that.  It  is,  however, 
probable  that  John  Wesley's  picture  of  school  life  gives  a 
generally  correct  impression  of  the  hard  fare  of  the  day.  I 
have  already  recorded  that  Gownboys  had  to  sleep  two  in  a 
bed  till  the  year  1805,  when,  under  Dr.  Raine,  who  intro- 
duced many  useful  changes,  they  were  given  a  bed  apiece. 
By  the  aid  of  an  extract  from  the  Governors'  order  book, 
the  reader  will  be  able  to  suggest  to  his  mind  both  what 
a  Gownboy  ate  and  drank  and  how  he  was  clothed. 

THE  WEEKLY  CHABDGES  OF  THE  SCROLLERS  DYETT. 

Every  sixe  Schollers  to  have  att  breakfast,  in  beere  lu 

and  in  bread  ld  which  cometh  by  the  weeke  to  xiiijrt 

Also  sixe  Schollers  are  to  have  the  like  proportion 
of  bread  and  beere  for  their  beavo8  in  the  after- 
noone  xiiij'1 

*  This  word  was  still  in  use  in  Suffolk  in  1864 — perhaps  is  so 
still — amongst  labourers  for  the  ten  or  eleven  o'clock  snack  in  the 
harvest-field. 


GOWNBOY   DIET   AND    OUTFIT  257 

Bread  and  beere  for  sixe  Schollers  xiiii  meales  att 

ld  the  peece  every  meale  cometh  by  the  weeke  to  vii" 
Beefe  to  vi  Schollers  for  v'1  meales                                iiijs  ijd 

Mutton  Veale  or  Porke  to  vi  Schollers  for  v(I  meales  vs  xtl 
Frydaie  Dynner  vi  Schollers  to  have  in  Furmaty 
iiiid  in    butter  iiiid  and  in    Fishe  or  Appelepyes 

iiiid  in  all  xii(l 

Satterday  att  Dynner  the  like  xiid 

Satterday  Supper  Furmaty  iiii<l  and  butter  iiid  in  all  viid 

DECREMENTS  TO  THE  SCHOLLERS  DYETT. 

White  and  bay  salte  vitl  ob.  by  the  weeke  and  for 
the  whole  year  cometh  to  xxviijs  iid 

Oatmeale  for  all  the  Schollers  viij'1  by  the  weekes 

and  for  the  whole  year  xxxiiij3  viiid 

Candles  xviii"1  a  week  for  xxiiij  weeks  att  iiii'1  the 

pound  vii11  iiiis 

APPARELL  AND  OTHER  NECCIES  FOR  THE  SCHOLLERS. 

For  a  gowne  vizc  ii  yardes  di  of  broadcloth  att  ixs  vid 
the  yarde  xxiii*  ixd  bayes  to  lyne  ytt  iiiier  yardes  att 
iis  iiiid  the  yard  ixs  iiiid  one  yard  of  russett  Jane  fustian 
for  the  back  and  pocketts  ixd  and  for  makinge  the  same 
gowne  iis  iiiid.  In  all  xxxvi8  iid. 

For  a  Somer  suite  viz4  vii  yardes  di  of  Fustian  for  the 
outside  and  to  lyne  the  Skirts  att  iis  iid  the  yard  xvis  iii'1 
two  yards  of  white  Jane  to  lyne  the  Dublett  att  ixd  the 
yard  xviiid  buttons  and  silke  xiid  straite  canvas  stiffeninge 
and  Cotton  for  the  sleeves  xxiid  lyninge  and  pocketts  for 
the  hose  ii8  id  ii  yardes  of  bayes  for  the  hoase  att  xv(1  the 
yard  iis  vid  and  for  makinge  the  Dublett  and  hoase  iiii3 
iiiid.  In  all  xxixs  vid. 

For  a  winter  suite  viz*  ii  yardes  di  and  di  q"ter  of 
Fustian  for  the  outside  of  the  Dublett  and  to  lyne  the 
Skirtes  att  xix'1  the  yard  iiii8  id  ob.  ii  yardes  of  white  Jane 
Fustian  to  lyne  the  Dublett  att  ix(1  the  yard  xviiid.  Buttons 
and  silke  vii'1  straite  Canvas  xiiii'1  oyled  Skinnes  for  lyinges 
and  pocketts  iis  id  making  the  Dublett  and  hoase 
iiiis  iiii11  for  buttons  and  silke  to  the  Jerkin  viid  and  for 
makinge  the  Jerkin  xxd.  In  all  xviis  x'1  ob. 


258  THE   SCHOOL 

Necessaryes  to  be  yearely  made  and  provided  by  the 
Schollers  Taylor  for  every  Scholler  viz.  five  paire  of  Shooes 
att  xxd  the  pfe  viii.  iiiid  iiiier  pfe  of  Stockinges  att  xxd  the 
pre  vis  viii'1  a  hatt  and  band  iiii*  garters  girdles  pointes 
and  gloves  xvid.  In  all  xxs  iiii'1. 

Other  Necessaryes  to  bee  provided  bye  the  Steward  and 
Schoolemaster  viz1  for  every  Scholler  three  Shirtes  in  a 
yeare  att  iii3  the  peece  ixs.  Eighte  bandes  to  every  one 
viii*  and  for  Bookes  paper  Inck  quilles  and  teachinge  them 
to  write  and  singe  xis  i".  In  all  xxviii*  i(l. 


MEMORAND.  UPON  THE  FESTIVALL  DAYES  ENSEUINGE  VIZT 

Xpmas  day6,  St  Steven's  daye,  St.  John's  daye,  Inno- 
cents daye,  Neweyeare's  day,  Twelveth  daye,  Candlemas 
daye,  Shrovesonday,  Shrovetuesday,  the  Kinge's  day, 
our  Lady  daye,  Easter  day,  Easter  Monday,  Easter 
Tuesdaie,  Midsomer  daye,  Michaelmas  daye,  All  Ste  daye 
and  the  vth  of  November  The  Urs  table  &  every  Messe 
of  poore  men  Officers  &  Schollers  shall  exceed  and  bee 
allowed  above  the  ordinary  allowance  as  followeth 
viz1.  The  Urs  Table  att  dynner  ii8  v'1  his  attendants  xiid. 
The  Urs  Table  at  Supper  xii(l  and  his  attendants  vid. 
The  pore  men  att  Dynner  xii11  and  att  Supper  vi(1.  And 
the  Schollers  att  Dynner  viii'1  and  att  Supper  vid. 

The  dress  of  a  Gownboy,  here  indicated,  underwent 
little  important  change  for  full  two  centuries.  He  wore 
a  straight-cut  "  jerkin  "  or  short  jacket  of  black  cloth, 
which  could  be  buttoned  up  in  front  in  cold  weather, 
while  its  large  collar  (over  which  a  white  Eton  collar 
was  worn  by  under  school)  could  also  be  turned  up  for 
effective  protection.  He  wore  a  hat,  but  we  have  no 
record  of  the  pattern  of  this,  since  it  was  abolished  in  1805 
in  favour  of  caps,  while  trenchers  for  upper  school  were 
introduced  at  a  later  period.  Knee  breeches  were 
worn,  and  these  still  prevailed  in  Russell's  day — as, 
indeed,  they  did  in  outside  society  * — for  Thackeray's 
drawing  in  his  own  set  of  illustrations  to  the  Newcomes 

*  A  caricature  by  Thackeray  in  Charterhouse  Museum  shows 
Dr.  Russell  teaching  Euclid  in  knee-breeches. 


THE   EARLY   HEADMASTERS  259 

shows  this.  I  do  not  know  at  what  exact  date  the  knee- 
breeches  were  commuted  to  the  less  seemly  trowser.  The 
cloth  gown  *  was  of  a  very  peculiar  but  picturesque 
cut,  the  sleeve,  below  the  armhole,  being  prolonged  into  a 
long  slender  point,  bound  round  at  the  end  with  strong 
thread.  Low  shoes  completed  the  dress.  Taking  any 
period  between  1614  and  1814,  it  is  probable  that  Richard 
Crashaw,  a  Gownboy  of  the  first  year  of  the  Foundation, 
differed  little  in  appearance  from  Richard  Steele  (1684-89), 
John  Wesley  (1713-20),  or  Lord  Ellenborough  (1761-67), 
nor  any  one  of  these  in  a  great  degree,  except  below  the 
knee,  from  the  last  Gownboy  who  wore  the  costume  in 
1872. 

The  internal  history  of  a  Public  School  is  not  often  of 
a  kind  to  produce  many  incidents  of  permanent  interest. 
I  can  select  but  a  few  which  may  be  worth  recording. 
Our  first  Headmaster,  Dr.  Nicholas  Gray,  held  office  but 
for  ten  years,  and  retired  to  the  Charterhouse  living 
of  Castle  Camps  on  his  marriage,  which  disqualified  him 
for  further  service  as  Headmaster.  Thence,  taking  again 
to  schoolmastering,  he  became  Headmaster  of  Merchant 
Taylors'  School  and  later  of  Eton.  The  third  on  the  list, 
Dr.  William  Middleton,  in  like  manner  reigned  but  two 
years,  and  retired  to  the  living  of  Cold  Norton.  We  find 
him  promised  the  rich  Charterhouse  living  of  Balsham  f 
in  Cambridgeshire  when  it  should  fall  vacant.  But  before 
a  vacancy  occurred  times  had  changed.  We  find  in  1641, 
when  the  complexion  of  the  Assembly  of  Governors  had 
become  Parliamentarian,  that  certain  questions  had  been 
administered  to  him  and  several  times  repeated.  And 
on  his  utterly  ignoring  them  the  Governors  take  it  as  a 
wilful  insult  and  cancel  their  promise  in  the  same  year 
that  saw  the  expulsion  of  his  successor,  Robert  Brooke, 
from  the  headmastershipon  account  of  his  Royalist  opinions, 
to  which  a  tradition — which  I  am  not  able  to  trace — 

*  A  gown  is  preserved  in  Charterhouse  Museum. 
t  Balsham  was  then  worth  about  £1000  a  year. 


260  THE   SCHOOL 

adds  the  picturesque  detail  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
flogging  any  boy  who  didn't  agree  with  him.  His  two 
pupils,  Crashaw  and  Lovelace,  apparently  did  agree. 
At  the  end  of  that  century  we  naturally  stop  at  the  name 
of  Dr.  Thomas  Walker,*  who  was  Headmaster  for  no 
less  than  thirty-nine  years,  from  1679-1728.  In  his  period 
come  the  names  of  Addison,  Steele,  and  Wesley.  His 
successor  was  Andrew  Tooke  (1728-1731),  author  of  the 
Pantheon,  a  familiar  school  book  in  its  day.  In  the  middle 
of  that  century  occurred  an  episode  which  throws  light, 
perhaps,  on  the  discipline  of  the  School  in  that  day,  for 
it  is  hardly  quite  an  isolated  incident,  though  certainly 
by  far  the  most  striking.  Under  James  Hotchkis,  as  Head- 
master, Gownboys  broke  into  a  rebellion,  headed  by  John 
Roberts,  captain  of  the  School,  and  his  fellow  Gownboy 
monitors.  The  matron's  maid  had  offended  them — we 
know  not  how.  They  proceeded  to  pour  water  over  the 
maid  and,  going  all  in  a  body, — save  seven  Gownboys, 
who  are  mentioned  by  name — they  broke  the  matron's 
windows,  demanding  the  expulsion  of  the  maid,  and 
then  ran  "  hollowing  "  on  to  Green,  refusing  to  re-enter 
the  House.  The  Master  was  summoned,  and  cut  off  all 
food  supplies — and,  though  a  few  returned  to  food  and 
duty,  the  great  mass  had  to  be  sent  home.  They  nearly 
all  came  back  on  Monday.  Roberts  was  expelled.  The 
monitors  were  degraded  and  all  "  received  the  correction 
of  the  School."  So  ended  a  mutiny  which,  strange  to  say, 
was  repeated  on  Dec.  12,  1808,  with  very  similar  results. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  strained  relations  which  might 
occur  at  times  between  the  Master  and  the  Schoolmaster 
under  the  somewhat  difficult  conditions,  one  may  quote 
a  very  remarkable  episode  recorded  in  the  year  1749. 
Dr.  Nicholas  Mann,  the  Master,  suddenly  inflicted  a  fine 
on  the  Headmaster,  Dr.  Eberhard  Crusius,  for  defect  in 
his  duties.  The  latter,  naturally  resenting  this,  appealed 
to  the  Governors,  whose  position  was  not  to  be  envied. 
They  escaped  from  their  dilemma  on  a  technical  issue, 

*  His  gravestone  is  in  the  pavement  of  the  Chapel  a  few  paces 
distant  from  the  Founder's  Tomb. 


ENTRANCE   TO    CHAPEL. 


NICOLAUS  MANN   OLIM   MAGISTER       261 

namely,  that  since  the  needed  notice  had  not  been  given, 
the  mulct  could  not  be  confirmed,  but  they  added  the  rider 
that  it  was  by  no  means  evident  that  the  condition  of  the 
School  was  due  to  the  present  Headmaster  (who  had  suc- 
ceeded Hotchkis).  And  indeed  the  subsequent  career 
of  Crusius — who  was  amongst  our  most  efficient  Head- 
masters, and  who  afterwards  received  the  thanks  of  the 
Governors  and  an  increase  of  salary — is  not  in  favour  of 
the  Master's  *  view  on  that  occasion. 

The  number  of  cases,  however,  during  the  century, 
in  which  Gownboys  are  reported  to  the  Governors  as  having 
absented  themselves  for  some  days,  or  having  gone  out 
of  bounds,  seems  to  show  that  the  very  small  staff  had  to 
deal  with  great  difficulties  and  with  conditions  that  made 
good  discipline  hard  to  maintain.  And  meanwhile 
London  had  been  steadily  creeping  up  to  Charterhouse. 
The  space  between  the  city  walls  and  ours,  which  in  the 
days  of  the  monastery  had  been  sheer  open  field,  and  in 
the  days  of  Sutton  had  been  dotted  along  the  line  of  Alders- 
gate  Street  with  a  few  great  houses,  and  elsewhere  with 
blocks  and  incipient  streets  of  tenements,  was  now  fairly 
covering  itself  with  buildings,  while  Goswell  Street  now 
prolonged  itself  past  our  east  wall  into  Clerkenwell.  The 
change  was  steadily  advancing  which,  seventy  years  later, 
was  to  drive  us  from  our  old  home  to  fresh  woods  and 
pastures  new.  But,  before  that  day  came,  Charterhouse 
was  to  pass  through  the  most  notable  period  of  its  existence. 

*  The  tablet  in  memory  of  this  Master,  Nicolaus  Mann  olim 
magisternuncremistiispulverc,  is  over  the  entrance  door  of  the  Chapel. 
The  grave  slab  of  Dr.  Crusius  lies  a  few  yards  away. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

RAINE— RUSSELL — THE   MADRAS    OR   BELL   SYSTEM, 
1791-1872 

THE  last  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  the  first 
of  the  nineteenth,  saw  the  School  under  the  rule  of  one  of 
its  strongest  Headmasters,  Matthew  Raine,  who  entered 
office  in  1791.  He  was  at  once  a  great  scholar  and  a 
capable  administrator,  and  at  the  end  of  his  twenty  years 
of  office  a  great  advance  had  been  made  in  the  equipment 
of  the  School,  both  as  to  teaching  and  housing. 

In  the  third  year  of  his  tenure,  namely  in  1794,  we  find 
the  first  mention  of  a  boarding-house,  which  was  afterwards 
destined  to  have  a  permanent  name  amongst  Carthusians. 
By  the  ratebook  *  of  the  Square  we  find  in  that  year  that 
the  Rev.  James  Stewart  (also  spelt  Steward)  paid  rates 
for  Rutland  Court,  and  in  the  following  year  Dr.  Raine 
did  so,  and  from  that  time  forward  the  house  seems  to  have 
been  used  as  a  schoolhouse,  though  with  great  alterations 
and  additions,  passing  through  the  hands  of  Chapman, 
Penny,  Oliver  Walford  (in  whose  day  it  obtained  the  name 
of  "  Verites  "),  Elwyn,  and  Poynder,  down  to  the  date 
of  the  removal  in  1872.  Rutland  House,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, was  the  great  house  built  by  Lord  North  at  the 
north-east  corner  of  Charterhouse  Square,  adjoining  the 
playground  (once  Great  Cloister),  who  destined  it  for 
the  home  of  Lady  North  when  he  should  have  ceased  to 
be  the  owner  of  the  mansion  in  Charterhouse.  It  had 
been  sold  to  the  Dukes  of  Rutland,  under  whom  it  obtained 

*  The  name  of  Mrs.  Anne  Fisher  occurs  in  the  ratebook,  but  she 
was  probably  a  "  Dame  "  taking  boarders  for  the  School  under 
Dr.  Raine 

262 


BIG   SCHOOL,    GOWNBOY   WRITING    SCHOOL    263 

the  name  of  Rutland  House,  and  passed  thence  into  the 
hands  of  the  Governors  of  Charterhouse,  by  whom,  in  1872, 
it  was  sold  to  Merchant  Taylors'  Company. 

In  1802  occurred  another  change  which  tells  of  enlarged 
ideas  as  to  the  needs  of  the  School.  In  that  year  the 
Governors  decided  to  build  a  large  schoolroom  (which  came 
to  be  known  as  Big  School)  on  the  raised  ground  known  as 
"  Hill,"  probably  caused,  in  the  first  instance,  by  the  debris 
of  the  seven  north  cells  of  the  Great  Cloister.  This  building, 
with  a  classroom  presently  added  at  each  end,  and  a  large 
room  known  as  "  New  School,"  which  had  become,  in  the 
writer's  day,  Fifth  Form  and  Under  Fifth  room,  and 
French  room,  was  destroyed  in  1872,  and  some  of  the  stone 
courses  and  windows  with  names  carved  upon  them  are 
now  set  up  in  the  cloisters  at  Godalming.  Up  to  the  year 
1802  there  had  been  no  separate  schoolroom,  but  the  teach- 
ing had  been  done  in  Gownboy  Writing  Schoolroom 
(which  would,  in  other  houses,  have  been  called  Under 
Long  Room),  and  apparently  also  in  a  room  above,  since 
the  Governors  now  order  the  latter  to  be  turned  into  a 
dormitory.  Writing  School,  as  it  existed  in  1802,  was 
a  very  fine  room.  I  have  in  an  earlier  chapter  spoken  of 
the  magnificent  ceiling  with  the  coats  of  arms  of  the 
first  Governors,  wrought  by  the  King's  plasterer  in  the 
reign  of  James  I.  Huge  square  columns  of  oak  (painted 
brown)  supported  this  ceiling,  while  the  walls  were  lined 
with  the  lockers  and  desks.  The  room  had  served  for  the 
teaching  of  every  great  Carthusian  from  1614,  and,  strange 
to  say,  it  was,  in  spite  of  the  addition  of  "  Big  School," 
still  to  be  used  again  as  a  classroom  for  the  Sixth  Form 
in  the  great  pressure  in  Russell's  days. 

Other  improvements  in  Gownboys  are  recorded  in  the 
orders  of  the  Governors  during  Raine's  Headmastership.* 
One  incident  of  his  day  has  already  been  touched  upon.  On 

*  A  portrait  of  Dr.  Baine,  by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  hangs  on 
the  landing  of  the  Master's  Lodge.  The  original  chalk  sketch  for 
the  head,  by  Lawrence,  is  at  Godalming.  Dr.  Raine's  monument, 
subscribed  for  by  Carthusians,  by  Flaxman,  is  on  the  south  wall 
of  the  Chapel,  and  the  letters  M.R  on  the  pavement  below  mark  his 
resting-place. 


264  THE   MADRAS   OR   BELL   SYSTEM 

Founder's  Day,  in  1808,  Gownboys  broke  into  open  rebellion. 
The  cause  of  this  was  the  issue  of  an  order  forbidding  Gown- 
boys  to  entertain  guests  in  Hall  on  Founder's  Day,  which 
practice  had  proved  a  source  of  disorder.  Gownboys  pro- 
ceeded to  break  the  windows  of  the  matron,  the  Headmaster, 
and  the  Master,  and  when  the  latter  appeared  to  overawe 
the  mutineers,  they  received  him  with  brickbats  and  other 
contumelious  missiles.  The  upshot  was,  nevertheless, 
in  favour  of  the  officers  mentioned,  since,  after  the  expulsion 
of  the  ringleader,  with  other  proportionate  punishment 
to  his  chief  supporters,  and  "  the  correction  of  the  School  " 
all  round,  Gownboys  accepted  the  inevitable  and  law  and 
order  reigned  once  more.  At  the  death  of  Dr.  Raine, 
Dr.  John  Russell,  who  had  been  second  master  for  some 
years,  succeeded.  It  is  noticeable  that  the  Governors,  before 
electing  him,  had  to  abolish  the  regulation  which  forbade 
them  to  elect  a  Headmaster  under  the  age  of  twenty-seven. 
Russell  had  not  reached  that  age. 

John  Russell  was  a  man  of  exceptional  vigour  and 
capacity,  a  born  reformer,  and  possessed  of  imagination 
and  of  original  ideas.  Perhaps  he  may  have  lacked  some- 
what that  intimate  knowledge  of  the  human  boy,  without 
which  all  other  knowledge  is  as  naught  in  value  for  a 
Headmaster.  His  endeavour  to  meet  the  needs  and  the 
loud  call  of  that  age  for  cheap  education  is  an  object-lesson 
for  all  time.  It  was  obvious  then,  as  now,  that  a  great 
school,  officered  by  men  of  first-rate  capacity  and  in  due 
proportion  to  the  numbers  of  the  school,  must  always 
be  expensive.  The  problem  of  securing  men  of  the  best 
quality  in  proper  quantity,  who  are  ready  to  make  school- 
mastering  their  profession,  can  be  solved  only  by  paying 
them.  Russell  endeavoured  to  meet  that  difficulty, 
which  stood  in  the  way  of  a  cheap  education,  by  resorting 
to  a  system  which  was  then  much  talked  of,  and  was 
known  as  the  Madras  System  or  the  Bell  System.*  This 
was  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  glorified  system  of  pupil 
teaching.  As  the  numbers  of  the  School  went  up  the 

*  So  far  as  I  know,  he  was  the  first  and  only  Headmaster  of  any 
important  school  who  put  the  system  to  its  proof. 


DR.    RUSSELL  265 

number  of  masters  almost  stood  still.  Thus,  in  1818,  for  238 
boys  there  were  5  masters  or  1  to  every  47.  In  1821,  for 
431  boys  there  were  still  5  masters  or  1  to  every  86.  But 
the  place  of  masters  was  supplied  by  "  prsepositi,"  the 
picked  boy  of  each  form  being  set  to  teach  the  rest  of  his  form, 
and  keep  order  as  best  he  could.  I  have  heard  Thackeray, 
at  a  Founder's  Day  dinner,  tell  the  story — which  was  also 
told  by  Dean  Saunders — how  once  Russell  entered  a  class- 
room where  chaos  appeared  to  be  ruling,  and  there  being  no 
sign  of  a  "  praepositus," — "  Where  is  your  praepositus  ?  " 
cried  Russell.  "  Please,  sir,  here  he  is,"  and  they  fished 
out,  from  under  the  desk,  the  very  small  boy  who  had 
been  set  to  rule  over  them.  They  had  placed  him  there 
to  be  out  of  the  way. 

Yet,  for  a  season,  the  system  had  an  extraordinary 
success.  The  School  *  ran  up  in  numbers  till,  in  1825,  it 
reached  480,  after  which  it  ran  down  with  mournful 
rapidity,  and  by  1830  the  writing  on  the  wall  was  plain 
for  all  to  read.  It  had  been  tried  in  the  balance  and  found 
wanting. 

Yet  it  has  been  said  that  the  Madras  System  might  have 
had  a  longer,  even  a  permanent,  life  if  all  the  masters  had 
been  men  of  the  stupendous  energy  and  force  of  John 
Russell,  f  Even  as  it  was  it  had  a  very  real  success  with  the 
boy  of  marked  ability — though  it  is,  perhaps,  but  one  more 
example  of  the  fact  that  such  a  boy  will  always  learn  under 
any  system.  But  for  the  average  boy,  and  especially 
for  the  boy  below  the  average,  it  proved,  as  it  was  bound 
to  prove,  a  complete  failure.  And  the  British  parent, 

*  Interesting  testimony  to  the  esteem  in  which  the  School  was 
held  is  found  in  a  letter  from  the  Duke  of  Wellington  of  March  18, 
1820,  to  his  friend,  Lady  Frances  Shelley:  "  I  am  astonished  that 
you  do  not  send  your  second  son  to  the  Charterhouse,  which  I  believe 
is  the  best  school  of  them  all.  .  .  .  Ever  yours  most  sincerely,  Welling- 
ton." Lady  Shelley  replies  :  "  I  perfectly  agree  that  the  Charterhouse 
is  the  best  school  of  all.  He  is  to  be  a  sailor,"  etc.  She  had  consulted 
Russell,  who  advised  her  against  sending  the  boy,  who  must  leave 
at  12  or  13.  Wellington  became  a  Governor  in  1827. 

t  Russell  did  not  take  boarders  in  his  own  House,  or  even,  for 
some  time,  live  inside  Charterhouse.  He  had  such  faith  in  the 
automatic  force  of  his  system  that  he  lived  at  Blackheath,  riding 
thither  after  school  hours  on  a  very  good-looking  black  cob,  as  I 
have  been  told  by  old  Carthusians  of  his  day. 


266  THE   MADRAS   OR   BELL  SYSTEM 

not  always  a  far-seeing  judge  in  matters  of  education,  had 
got  what  he  had  asked  for — a  cheap  education — and 
presently  discovered  the  value  of  the  article.  It  took 
him,  however,  some  fourteen  years  to  do  so. 

Naturally,  as  the  School  in  the  early  days  of  "  the 
System "  ran  up  in  numbers,  Russell  found  himself  in 
danger  of  being  choked  by  his  own  success.  He  had  much 
ado  to  find  house  room  for  them.  There  was  no  house 
within  the  walls  at  this  time,  except  Gownboys,  which 
took  boarders.  In  Raine's  day,  as  we  have  seen,  Rutland 
Court,  entered  from  Charterhouse  Square,  but  overlooking 
the  playground,  had  been  brought  into  use,  and  also 
"  No.  15,"  Charterhouse  Square,  the  house  adjoining  the 
Master's  Lodge,  which  had  been,  during  the  greater  part  of 
Raine's  period,  occupied  by  the  Rev.  James  Steward  *  till 
the  year  1811.  Now,  in  Russell's  day,  No.  15  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  second  master,  the  Rev.  Robert  Watkinson 
(familiarly  known,  as  I  have  been  told  by  John  Murray  and 
other  Carthusians,  as  "  Watky  ").  It  was  a  notable  house, 
this.  For,  besides  the  great  Carthusians  of  Steward's  day, 
it  held  in  the  year  1821  Thomas  Lovell  Beddoes  the  poet, 
and  John  Murray,  the  third  of  the  great  publishing  house 
(b.  1808),  who,  it  is  interesting  to  note  from  the  Blue  Book, 
was  presently  "  prsepositus "  of  the  Form  which  held 
Dean  Liddell  and  Thackeray.  Next  door  to  No.  15, 
namely  in  Nos.  14  and  13,  united  into  one  house,  the  Rev. 
William  Henry  Chapman — afterwards  Reader,  and  then 
Rector  of  Balsham — took  boarders.  In  the  year  1821  we 
find  that  Watkinson  had  148  boys  in  his  house  and  Chapman 
144.  And  he  who  knows  the  size  of  these  two  houses  may 
well  stand  aghast  at  the  knowledge.  For  we  have  sufficient 
means  of  judging  of  their  capacities.  Chapman's  house, 
Nos.  13,  14,  f  still  exists  to  tell  its  own  tale,  but  Watkinson's 

*  In  this  house  Sir  Henry  Havelock  was  a  boarder  under  Steward 
at  the  same  time  as  Archdeacon  William  Hale  Hale,  afterwards 
Master  of  Charterhouse.  I  state  this  on  the  authority  of  Miss 
Caroline  Hale,  daughter  of  the  Archdeacon,  still  living  in  1914. 
It  is  evident  that  George  Grote,  the  historian,  was  in  Steward's 
house  at  the  same  time. 

t  These  two  houses  are  now  the  Fife  Hotel  (1914),  and,  in  external 
appearance,  very  little  altered  since  Russell's  day,  as  may  be  seen 


SCHOOL    HOUSES,    1820-30  267 

was  pulled  down  in  1838-42  to  make  room  for  the 
present  sleeping  quarters  of  the  Master's  Lodge. 

The  exact  frontage  of  Watkinson's  was  75  ft.  7  ins., 
and  its  depth  about  40  ft.,  and  it  had  three  not  lofty 
storeys.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  it  stood  over  an  area  of 
perhaps  one  of  the  block  houses  at  modern  Charterhouse, 
built  to  receive  between  fifty  and  sixty  boys,  while  its 
cubic  contents  were  scarcely  more  than  half.  And  into 
that  space  were  crammed  148  boys,  besides  the  House 
Master's  family  and  staff  of  servants,  and  into  the  next 
house,  Chapman's,  as  we  have  seen,  144.  A  letter  in  my 
possession  describes  the  appalling  overcrowding,  and  tells 
of  the  condition  of  things  in  one  of  these  houses  when  an 
epidemic  of  scarlet  fever  broke  out.  The  patients  were 
crammed  into  an  upper  room  which  had  direct  communi- 
cation with  the  box  room.  So  they  lay,  and  so  they 
recovered. 

But  in  the  year  which  we  have  quoted  the  Governors 
appointed  a  small  committee,  headed  by  the  Bishop  of 
London,  to  report  on  the  overcrowding,  and  as  a  result  the 
order  was  made  that  in  future  the  numbers  of  the  two 
houses  should  be  reduced  to  100  each — still  at  least  four 
times  what  they  were  fitted  to  carry  according  to  the 
standard  of  to-day.  This  reduction  led  to  the  opening  of 
three  new  boarding-houses,  one  for  fifty-six  by  the  Rev. 
Francis  Lloyd  at  No.  18,  Charterhouse  Square — its  size  on 
the  map  shows  how  inadequate  it  was  for  such  a  number — 
while  two  new  houses  were  opened  in  Wilderness  f  Row, 

from  a  schoolboy  drawing  of  the  period,,which  shows  that  the  balcony 
of  to-day  is  that  which  existed  in  1816.  John  Leech  was  in  this  House. 

*  Any  knowledge  of  the  surroundings  of  Russell's  time,  which 
ended  twenty  years  exactly  before  my  own  school  days  began  in 
1856,  is  derived  from  letters,  in  my  possession,  written  to  me  some 
thirty  years  ago  by  Dean  Liddell,  John  H.  Roupell,  P.  R.  Hunt, 
Colonel  Josiah  Wilkinson,  the  Rev.  W.  Phillott,  and  others.  Also 
from  what  I  gleaned  from  Carthusians  of  that  date,  who  in  my  day 
revisited  Charterhouse,  and  even  from  what  fell  from  the  lips  of  Dean 
Saunders,  Thackeray,  John  Murray,  and  Miss  Leech,  sister  of  John 
Leech. 

t  It  is  needless  to  remind  the  reader  that  Wilderness  Row 
retained  the  memory  of  the  Monks'  Wilderness.  Unhappily  the 
name  has,  in  the  last  twenty  years,  been  changed  to  that  of  Clerken- 
well  Road,  and  one  more  landmark  has  vanished  from  London, 
with  no  very  apparent  gain  to  anybody. 


268  THE   MADRAS   OR   BELL   SYSTEM 

Nos.  27,  28,  one  on  either  side  of  Berwick  Street  at  the 
junction  with  the  Row.  These  were  each  to  hold  fifty-six, 
and  they  both  remain  to  this  day.  The  house  to  the  west 
of  Berwick  Street  was  held  by  the  Rev.  Edward  Churton 
(Archdeacon  Churton,  the  well-known  Spanish  scholar), 
while  that  on  the  east  was  opened  by  the  Rev.  Edmund 
Henry  Penny.  And,  since  Wilderness  Row  was  neither 
then  nor  now  exactly  ideal  for  boys  to  roam  in,  a  bifurcated 
tunnel  (which  still  exists)  under  the  Row  gave  access  from 
the  playground  (Under  Green)  to  these  Houses.  In  the 
very  first  year  of  Penny's  House,  William  Makepeace 
Thackeray  was  a  boarder  in  it.  And  here  occurred  Thacke- 
ray's fight  with  George  Stovin  Venables,  which  for  ever 
after  gave  to  the  great  novelist's  nose  its  resemblance  to 
that  of  Michelangelo.  I  have  in  my  possession  a  letter 
from  J.  H.  Roupell,  a  monitor  in  the  House,  who  gave 
leave  for  the  fight  but  was  too  busy  with  Greek  Iambics  to 
preside  himself  on  the  occasion.  Thackeray  remained  in 
that  House  for  two  years  and  then  removed  to  the  House 
No.  7,  Charterhouse  Square,  where  Mrs.  Boyes  took  in  a 
few  boys  who  were  marked  under  letter  G  as  day  boys  in 
the  Blue  Book.  In  1823  yet  another  boarding  house  was 
opened  by  the  Rev.  Andrew  Irvine  at  40,  41,  Charterhouse 
Square,  in  the  house — whether  rebuilt  or  not  I  cannot  say — 
once  occupied  by  Lord  Howard  of  Effingham,  and  earlier 
still  by  the  Duchess  of  Dorset. 

If  the  crowding  in  the  houses  was  excessive,  the  accom- 
modation in  the  playground  was  to  match.  Up  to  the 
year  1821  the  School  had  only  the  space  so  often  mentioned 
which  represented  the  square  of  the  Great  Cloister  of  the 
Monastery.  This  space,  known  as  "  Green,"  is  about 
330  feet  square,  and  from  a  report  made  by  Dr.  Russell 
in  1819  it  was  uneven,  full  of  holes,  and  quite  unfit  for  the 
playing  of  games.  Of  organised  games,  as  we  know  them 
now,  there  had  so  far  been  none,  though  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  in  that  respect  Charterhouse  was  not  very 
unlike  most  other  schools.  Cricket  had  not  anywhere 
taken  the  place  which  it  now  holds,  but  at  Charterhouse  at 
least  it  must  have  been  still  in  a  prehistoric  stage.  Such  a 


CRICKET,    FOOTBALL,    HOOPS  269 

thing  as  a  match  must  have  been  almost  impossible. 
Football  had  not  anywhere  developed  into  its  final  shapes, 
though  the  game  at  Rugby  was  well  on  its  way.  It  was 
still  in  its  condition  as  a  mere  "  runabout  "  elsewhere. 
Probably  at  Charterhouse  the  Cloister  game  was  beginning 
to  take  shape,  but  its  history  is  buried  in  obscurity.  There 
were  in  the  south-east  corner  of  "  Green  "  next  to  Rutland 
House  (afterwards  called,  as  we  have  said,  "  Verites  ")  two 
courts  for  bat-fives,  but  as  these  were  paid  for  by  private 
enterprise  they  are  not  recorded  in  the  Governors'  minutes 
and  I  cannot  give  their  date,  but  I  believe  them  to  have 
been  later  than  Russell's  day.  In  1821  the  only  game 
that  I  am  able  to  trace  in  a  set  form  was  the  somewhat 
unusual  one  of  hoop-racing,  which,  as  it  has  been  described 
to  me  by  those  who  knew  it,  was  a  better  game  than  our 
modern  pride  might  lead  us  to  esteem  it.  To  drive  four 
big  hoops  at  once  round  a  square  space  of  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  mile,*  with  sharp  angles  to  it — for  that  is  what  Colonel 
Wilkinson  described  to  me — must  certainly  have  needed 
no  small  skill  and  have  had  some  fine  exercise  about  it.  It 
was  for  this  form  of  racing  that  Lord  Ellenborough, 
according  to  tradition,  painted  up  on  the  old  east  wall  of 
monastery  date  the  word  "  Crown,"  with  a  presentment 
of  a  crown  above  it  to  act  as  a  winning  post.  This  name 
survives  at  Godalming,  having  been  transferred  to  the 
Shop  at  the  Pavilion.  The  bay  of  cloisters  (west  side) 
known  as  Middle  Briers — no  one  has  ever  found  a  satis- 
factory derivation  for  this  name — was  known  as  "  The 
Bell,"  in  the  said  races,  but  this  name  has  not  been  trans- 
ferred to  any  site  at  Godalming.  I  may  mention  that 
Thackeray  protested  indignantly  against  the  suggestion 
that  the  School  played  marbles  in  his  day. 

From  what  has  been  said  it  will  be  clear  that  the 
provision  for  games  was  miserably  inadequate  for  over 
400  boys,  and  in  1821 — after  waiting  two  years  for  it — 
Russell  obtained  the  assent  of  the  Governors  to  his  levelling 
and  improving  "  Green,"  and  at  the  same  time  the  wall 

*  John  Wesley  tells  us  in  his  diary  that  he  used  to  keep  himself 
fit  by  running  round  "  Green  "  thrice  every  morning  before  breakfast. 

T 


270  THE   MADRAS   OR   BELL  SYSTEM 

just  north  of  "  Hill,"  which  separated  the  site  of  the  old 
Great  Cloister  ("  Green ")  from  the  Monks'  Wilderness 
garden  was  thrown  down  and  two  and  a  half  acres  from 
the  latter  were  added  to  the  playground.  The  two  Greens 
thus  became  "  Upper  Green  "  and  "  Under  Green."  At 
about  the  same  time  Russell,  at  his  own  expense,  had  to 
raise  the  wall  round  "  Under  Green  "  which  separated  it 
from  Goswell  Street  and  Wilderness  Row,  since  bold 
spirits  were  wont  to  overleap  the  previous  inadequate 
boundary  and  to  "  tib  out  "  as  it  was  called.  And  this 
brings  us  to  the  question  of  discipline 

No  one  will  need  to  be  told  that  with  at  most  seven 
resident  masters  to  400-480  boys  it  was  impossible  to 
use  effective  control.  Boys  could  be  away  for  a  day 
or  two  without  being  found  out,  especially  if  they  were 
day  boys.  You  took  your  holiday  and  on  your  return 
you  took  your  chance.  Colonel  Wilkinson  told  me  how 
he  and  John  Leech  (at  that  time  a  day  boy)  "  tibbed  out  " 
once  for  a  day's  fishing  on  the  Lea,  and  how,  luck  not 
favouring  them  that  time,  on  their  return  they  caught 
something  which  is  not  mentioned  in  any  book  on  "  British 
Fishes."  In  the  great  chaos  of  big  forms  it  must  have 
been  not  a  difficult  thing  to  escape  notice.  And  whatever 
hopes  Russell  could  have  had  of  working  his  system  to  a 
success  so  far  as  teaching  went,  it  is  difficult  to  understand 
how  he  could  have  hoped  for  it  in  the  matter  of  discipline. 

Dean  Liddell,  in  a  very  interesting  letter  to  me,  de- 
scribes the  state  of  things  in  Russell's  own  classroom, 
which  was  still  Gownboy  Writing  School  when  he  and 
Thackeray  were  together  in  the  Second  Form  "  Emeriti." 
Russell,  by  the  way,  had  made  the  fatal  mistake  of  changing 
the  names  of  the  forms,  so  that, the  head  form  was  no 
longer  the  Sixth  but  the  "  Senior "  or  "  First  Form," 
the  rest  ranging  down  to  the  Twelfth  Form,  the  rear  being 
brought  up  by  two  forms  of  Petties.*  In  fact,  Russell 
forgot  the  knowledge  so  important  to  any  reformer,  and 
especially  a  Public  School  reformer,  that  you  may  change 

*  The  present  writer  began  school  life  in  1856  in  the  Under 
Petties.  There  was  no  lower  for  him  to  start  in. 


VlTH    FORM   IN   RUSSELL'S   DAY  271 

anything  you  like  with  safety  so  long  as  you  do  not  change 
the  names.  The  school  would  have  none  of  the  new 
names,  and  kept  religiously  to  their  Sixth  Form,  just  as 
they  resented  the  substitution  of  fines  for  corporal  punish- 
ment. Dean  LiddelPs  friend,  Dean  Stanley,  used  to 
chuckle  over  Russell's  failure  here.  "  Russell  was  a  very 
great  headmaster  who  could  do  almost  anything,"  he 
used  to  say,  "  except  to  overcome  the  conservatism  of 
boys." 

Russell  had  a  colossal  Sixth  ("  First  Form  ").  In  1826, 
the  year  which  Liddell  describes,  there  were  fifty-five  in  it. 
And  Russell  had  inserted  a  sort  of  Under  Sixth  (Second 
Form)  of  fifty-four  more  boys.  These  he  called  the 
"  Emeriti,"  and  they  were  privileged  to  sit  in  the  same 
classroom  (Writing  School)  as  the  Sixth  Form  and  catch,  if 
they  could,  any  passing  scraps  of  the  teaching  and  of  the 
construing,  for  they  were,  says  Liddell,  themselves  hardly 
ever  "  set  on,"  and  if  they  were  the  consequences  were 
disastrous,  since  they  naturally  never  prepared  a  lesson. 
Thackeray,  says  Liddell,  sat  next  to  him  in  this  remarkable 
form,  and  the  Blue  Book  of  1826  bears  out  the  statement. 
Thackeray  spent  nearly  all  his  time  in  drawing,  but  he  also 
brought  in  a  volume  of  Byron  and  a  novel  to  fall  back 
upon.  In  later  years,  says  Liddell,  when  Thackeray,  the 
Dean  himself,  and  Mrs.  Liddell  were  riding  in  the  Park, 
Thackeray  turned  to  Mrs.  Liddell  and  accused  the  Dean 
of  having  ruined  his  prospects  in  life  by  always  doing  his 
Verses  for  him  and  so  depriving  him  of  all  opportunity  of 
self-improvement.  Certainly  the  opportunities  of  such 
vicarious  self-improvement  as  Liddell  had — though  he 
denied  it,  saying  he  had  much  ado  to  get  through  his  own 
— must  have  been  ample  in  that  day.  Another  Carthusian 
tells  me  that  Russell  spoke  with  a  peculiarly  distinct  and 
syllabic  utterance,  and  made  a  great  point  of  it  that  every 
one  in  his  form  should  do  the  same.  Considering  the  size 
of  the  form  he  must  surely  have  sent  forth  a  great  brood  of 
articulate-speaking  men.  The  schoolmaster  of  to-day,  as 
he  realises  the  picture  of  Russell's  classroom,  can  only 
humbly  ask  himself  how  anything  got  taught  or  learnt  in 


272  THE   MADRAS   OR   BELL   SYSTEM 

that  vast  assembly  in  the  Doctor's  classroom.  Yet  the 
names  of  the  men  who  went  out  from  Charterhouse  in  that 
day  show  us  that  it  did. 

But,  as  I  have  already  said,  the  end  came  and  came 
rapidly,  not  through  the  failure  of  the  scholarly  stratum  of 
the  school,  but  through  the  unfitness  of  the  system  to 
handle  the  average  boy.  In  1832  the  numbers  had 
dwindled  to  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  with  four 
masters.  When  John  Russell  went  out  from  Charterhouse 
— there  is  something  very  pathetic  in  the  farewell  of  the 
strong  man — the  school  said  good-bye  to  a  great  though 
mistaken  Headmaster  whose  career  had  indeed  made 
history  for  it. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

SAUNDERS— ELDER— ELWYN—HAIG   BROWN 

WHEN  Augustus  Page  Saunders,  a  man  of  strong  will  and 
a  fine  teacher,  took  up  the  reins  in  1832,  he  was  yet  for 
some  years  to  suffer  from  the  downward  impetus  which 
was  still  upon  the  school.  It  reached  low- water  mark  in 
1835,  when  the  Blue  Book  records  ninety-nine.  All  the 
boarding  houses  in  the  square  now  ceased  to  exist,  and  the 
school  shrank  within  the  limits  of  Gownboys,  Penny's 
house  (Rutland  Court,  presently  to  be  Verites — Penny  had 
come  to  it  from  Wilderness  Row  in  1827),  and  presently 
"  Saunderites."  And  except  that  the  Reader  took  a  very 
few  boarders  into  his  house,  who  were  supposed  to  need 
special  care,  there  were  never  again  any  other  boarding- 
houses.  In  1838-42,  indeed,  No.  15,  Charterhouse  Square, 
where  great  Carthusians  had  spent  their  schooldays,  was 
pulled  down  to  make  room  for  the  present  sleeping  wing  of 
Master's  Lodge,  and  at  the  same  time  the  headmaster's 
house,  at  the  north  end  of  the  terrace,  was  altered  to  ac- 
commodate boarders.  Gownboy  "  Writing  School  "  was 
divided  in  half  by  a  wooden  wall,  and  the  northern  half 
adjoining  the  headmaster's  house  was  thrown  into  the 
newly-formed  house.*  It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that 
the  Governors,  who  were  at  the  time  at  heavy  expense  for 
the  new  buildings  of  the  Brothers,  felt  themselves  bound  to 
resort  to  this  economy  rather  than  provide  a  long  room 

*  The  dates,   therefore,  of  the  three   houses  which  gave  their 
names  to  the  three  "  blockhouses  "  at  Godalming  are  as  follows  : — 

Gownboys     . .          . .  1614 

Verites  ..          ..  1794 

Saunderites  . .          . .  1836 
273 


274    SAUNDERS— ELDER-  ELWYN-HAIG   BROWN 

elsewhere  for  Saunderites.  The  plan  involved  the  injury 
of  a  most  stately  room,  whose  final  destruction  at  a  later 
date  is  ever  to  be  regretted. 

From  the  date  of  its  lowest  numbers  the  school  gradually 
recovered  and  in  the  forties  once  reached  one  hundred  and 
seventy-eight.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  school 
was  now  fighting  against  odds  which  no  headmaster, 
however  capable,  could  withstand.  The  growth  of  London 
was  going  forward  with  leaps  and  bounds.  The  unwilling- 
ness of  parents  to  send  their  sons  from  the  country  to  a 
boarding  school  in  London,  which,  once  country,  was  fast 
becoming  a  space  enclosed  by  streets  and  factories,  was 
now  making  itself  felt.  The  days  of  Charterhouse  as  a 
London  school  were,  in  the  'fifties,  already  numbered, 
though  few  could  then  have  been  found  to  realise  it.  In 
1853  when  Dr.  Saunders  retired  and  became  Dean  of 
Peterborough,  he  left  one  hundred  and  seventy-eight  boys 
in  the  school.  He  had  been  a  teacher  of  the  first  order — 
he  produced  two  Balliol  Scholars,  Palmer  and  Walford,  in 
one  year — and  a  strong,  at  times  even  trenchant,  dis- 
ciplinarian. Carthusians  of  his  day  were  full  of  good 
stories  of  his  doings  and  sayings,  marked  all  by  a  certain 
quaint  humour  which  was  among  the  valuable  assets  of  his 
personality — witness,  for  example,  his  offer  to  two  boys 
who  were  anxious  to  fight,  that  though  he  could  not  oblige 
them  in  that  respect,  he  would  flog  each  of  them  as  long  as 
the  other  desired,  and  it  would  come  to  the  same  in  the 
end.  Carthusians  who  had  been  in  his  Sixth  were  fond  of 
telling  how  in  his  later  days  he  would  seem  to  be  asleep, 
the  form  keeping  up  a  drowsy  humming  for  fear  of  arousing 
him,  till  he  would  suddenly  wake  up,  pounce  on  some  boy, 
set  him  on  to  construe,  and  in  ten  minutes  teach  more  than 
many  a  man  could  do  in  a  day.  He  left  his  mark  on  the 
school,  and  it  was  indeed  fitting  that  a  great  school-house 
should  keep  his  name  alive. 

The  reign  of  his  successor,  Edward  Elder,  from  1853  to 
1858  has  a  tinge  of  sadness  in  it.  A  man  of  the  greatest 
intellect,  a  strenuous  and  able  teacher,  he  added  to  his 
gifts  a  mastery  of  many  branches  of  general  cultivation 


ELDER    ELWYN    HAIG   BROWN  275 

and  was  a  man  of  wide  interests.  But  he  made,  as  I  have 
been  told  by  one  who  knew  him  well,  his  great  powers  pay 
too  heavy  a  tax  to  nature.  He  would,  after  a  strenuous 
day's  work  in  school,  go  out,  for  example,  to  some  new 
play,  if  it  interested  him,  returning  afterwards  to  work 
into  the  small  hours  of  the  morning.  The  strain  was  too 
great,  the  penalty  had  to  be  paid  and  the  last  two  years  of 
his  life  were  shadowed  by  a  great  sadness.  The  work  of 
the  school  fell  mainly  on  his  second  in  command,  Richard 
Elwyn,  who  on  Elder's  death  became  headmaster.  Most 
inspiring  of  teachers  and  most  lovable  of  men,  he  entered 
on  his  task  after  a  long  and  anxious  strain  which  had  fallen 
on  him  during  the  last  period  of  his  predecessor's  rule,  and 
he  never,  so  I  have  heard  him  say,  entirely  recovered  from 
it  during  his  work  at  Charterhouse.  He  was  not  a  man  to 
spare  himself  at  any  time,  and  at  the  end  of  five  years, 
during  which  he  had  such  men  as  Henry  Nettleship,  Sir 
Richard  Claverhouse  Jebb,  Edward  Wharton,  and  Richard 
Webster  (Lord  Alverstone)  for  his  pupils,  he  resigned  his 
post  under  the  threats  of  a  nervous  breakdown.  Few  men 
have  had,  in  greater  degree  and  better  deserved,  the  love 
of  those  whom  he  taught.* 

When,  in  the  late  winter  months  of  1863,  the  Governors 
chose  William  Haig  Brown  out  of  a  large  field  of  com- 
petitors, they  made  a  great  choice.  He  had  not  long  held 
office  before  it  became  clear  that  Charterhouse  had  got 
one  of  the  strong  type  of  headmasters.  Nor  was  he  long 
himself  in  grasping  the  situation  of  the  school,  which  was 
briefly  this.  It  was  now  so  surrounded  by  a  dense  net- 
work of  warehouses,  factories,  and  streets  as  to  offer  no 
possibility  of  expansion.  Even  if  by  some  miracle — it 
would  have  been  little  less — the  numbers  could  have  been 
once  more  raised  so  as  to  bear  comparison  with  those  of 
other  great  schools,  no  schoolhouses  with  which  to  meet 
the  increase  could  have  been  provided  within  the  walls, 
and  still  less  could  extra  playground  on  a  scale  to  meet  the 

*  A  rest  and  change  entirely  restored  him.  He  resumed  the 
congenial  work  of  teaching  as  Headmaster  at  St.  Peter's,  York, 
and  afterwards  became  Master  of  Charterhouse. 


276    SAUNDERS— ELDER— ELWYN— HAIG   BROWN 

increased  requirements  of  the  day  have  by  any  means  been 
provided.  If  Charterhouse  was  to  hold  its  own  with  other 
Public  Schools  there  was  but  one  way — removal  to  a 
country  site.  The  question  had  been  already  at  times  in 
the  air.  The  reader  will  find  it  gravely  discussed  in 
Papers  from  Greyfriars,  the  school  Journal,  about  1859. 
But  no  serious  movement  was  made  till  1864,  when  the 
Public  School  Commission  reported  strongly  in  favour  of 
the  change,  which  had,  during  the  inquiry,  been  urged 
upon  them  by  no  less  a  witness,  amongst  others,  than  Dean 
Saunders.  In  July  of  that  year  the  Master  and  school- 
master were  ordered  to  make  a  report  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  Committee,  and  this  report  was  referred 
in  November  to  a  committee  consisting  of  Earls  Dalhousie, 
Romney,  and  Harrowby,  the  Bishop  of  London,  and  Lord 
Justice  Turner,  who,  on  March  15,  1865,  returned  their 
report  to  the  Assembly  with  twelve  recommendations. 
For  our  present  purpose  we  extract  merely  clause  8 
which  refers  to  the  removal  of  the  school — 

"8.  That  the  Removal  of  the  School  into  the  country 
is  unnecessary  and  also  inexpedient  inasmuch  as  it  would 
entail  the  maintenance  of  two  establishments,  an  expendi- 
ture which  the  funds  of  the  Hospital  could  not  meet. 
And  that  the  idea  that  such  a  change  is  in  consonance 
with  the  views  and  opinions  of  old  Carthusians  is  an 
error." 

It  is  hard,  as  one  reads  this  record  in  the  Governors' 
order  book,  to  persuade  oneself  that  this  really  took  place 
within  two  years  and  two  months  of  the  final  achievement. 
It  is  just  this  fact  which  enables  one  to  gauge  the  greatness 
of  that  achievement.  The  Master  of  Charterhouse,  Arch- 
deacon Hale,  whose  great  services  to  the  Brotherhood  and 
to  Gownboys  have  already  been  gratefully  recorded — he 
was  indeed  as  much  the  second  Founder  of  the  Brotherhood 
as  Haig  Brown  was  to  be  of  the  School — was  known  to  be 
adverse  to  the  scheme,  had  indeed  pledged  his  reputation 
that  it  would  never  go  through.  It  was  thought  that  his 
view  would  be  that  of  the  great  majority  of  Carthusians, 


DR.   HAIG   BROWN— THE    REMOVAL        277 

bound  as  they  were  by  affection  and  loyalty  to  a  place 
which  has  always  had  a  singular  power  of  winning  the 
affection  of  those  who  live  in  it.  Dr.  Haig  Brown  boldly 
put  the  question  to  the  proof.  He  sent  a  circular  to  all 
available  Carthusians  to  obtain  their  opinion.  The  result 
must  have  astonished  even  Haig  Brown  himself.  The 
majority  was  not  less  than  ten  to  one  in  favour  of  the 
Removal,  though  the  vote  was  commonly  coupled  with 
expressions  of  deep  regret  for  the  necessity. 

Dr.  Haig  Brown,  in  his  modest  account  of  this  plebiscite 
and  of  what  followed,  quotes  the  pregnant  answer  of 
Bishop  Connop  Thirlwall :  "  You  ask  about  my  feeling  as 
to  the  removal  of  the  School.  My  feeling  is  that  it  should 
remain  on  the  present  site  ;  my  judgment  says  that  it 
should  be  immediately  removed  from  it." 

Thus,  armed  with  the  assent  of  old  Carthusians,  Haig 
Brown  went  forward,  and  with  his  second-in-command, 
the  Rev.  Frederick  Poynder,  an  old  Carthusian  of  Russell's 
day,  presented  on  May  1, 1865,  a  memorial  to  the  Governors 
to  consider  whether,  if  it  should  be  thought  desirable  that 
the  School  should  be  removed  into  the  country,  any  and 
what  means  exist  for  carrying  that  object  into  effect. 
Lord  Derby  (who  had  previously  been  in  strong  opposition), 
Lords  Devon,  Romney,  Harrowby,  Cranworth,  Lord 
Justice  Turner,  and  the  Master  formed  the  Committee, 
who  made  a  report  in  1866,  in  consequence  of  which  the 
Assembly  of  Governors  resolved  on  May  2,  1866,  as 
follows  : — "  Upon  Consideration  of  the  Memorials  of  the 
Schoolmaster  and  Usher,  and  of  Certain  Parents  and 
Guardians  of  Scholars,  as  to  the  Removal  of  the  School 
and  the  report  of  the  Committee  having  reference  to  the 
subject  read  at  last  Assembly,  the  Assembly  were  of 
opinion  that  it  is  DESIRABLE  to  make  arrangements  for 
removing  the  School  into  the  Country."  And  this,  let  us 
note,  as  beforesaid,  was  little  more  than  two  years  from 
their  previous  decision  in  the  other  direction.  The  book 
is  signed  that  day  by  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  and 
York,  the  Duke  of  Buccleugh,  the  Earls  of  Derby  and 
Devon,  Lord  Justice  Turner,  and  William  Hale  Hale.  No 


278    SAUNDERS— ELDER— ELWYN—HAIG   BROWN 

one  has  ever  disputed  the  fact  that  this  remarkable  change 
of  front,  which  does  the  greatest  credit  to  the  open- 
mindedness  of  the  Governors,  was  due  to  the  indomitable 
spirit  of  William  Haig  Brown. 

Then  came,  extending  over  several  years,  the  details 
of  the  change.  First  of  all,  the  choice  of  a  site.  Here, 
again,  it  is  no  secret  that  the  same  guiding  spirit  was 
behind  the  Governors.  Other  sites  had  been  considered — 
Hitcham  Bank,  Taplow,  for  example.  And  the  Governors 
owned  land  at  Hallingbury,  where  Sutton  had  originally 
designed  to  place  the  School.  But  the  happy  fact  that 
Haig  Brown  possessed  inspired  local  knowledge — for  the 
home  of  Mrs.  Haig  Brown  *  had  been  at  Hambledon,  a  few 
miles  away — led  him  to  the  choice  of  the  site  at  Godalming, 
which  was  at  the  time  in  the  market  under  the  name  of 
the  Deanery  Farm  Estate,  then  the  property  of  the  British 
Land  Company.  The  Committee  of  Governors  who 
visited  it  reported  that  it  was  "  a  singularly  eligible  site 
for  a  Public  School,  having  only  one  drawback — the  want 
of  adequate  facilities  for  boating."  Waiving  the  draw- 
back, the  Governors  bought  the  estimated  68|  acres  for 
£9,450.  Never  was  a  happier  purchase  made. 

That  autumn  the  Governors  got  their  Bill  through 
Parliament.  I  was  present  on  the  occasion — an  under- 
graduate from  Cambridge — in  company  with  my  late  and 
my  future  Headmaster,  Dr.  Haig  Brown,  to  hear  the 
momentous  debate.  Mr.  Ayrton,  no  inconsiderable  force 
at  that  time,  opposed  it  strongly,  but  Gladstone,  who 
showed  great  knowledge — it  was  easy  to  see  whence  he 
had  his  brief — destroyed  all  Ayrton's  arguments  in  a  very 
lucid  speech,  and  the  Bill  was  duly  passed. 

The  same  Governors'  Assembly  (Nov.  29,  1867)  which 
records  the  obtaining  of  the  Bill,  records  also  the  sale  of 
5|  acres  of  land,  with  the  schoolhouses,  Gownboys, 
Saunderites,  Verites,  and  Big  School  to  Merchant  Taylors' 
School  for  £90,000,  a  sum  so  ludicrously  below  its  value 
that  nothing  can  account  for  it  save  the  desire  to  deal 

*  I  can  only  here  express  my  heart's  tribute  to  one  whose  name 
all  Carthusians  delight  to  honour. 


THE    REMOVAL  279 

liberally  with  another  Public  School.  This  reason  has 
been  freely  given.  It  may  be  the  true  one,  but,  whatever 
the  cause,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  Governors  were 
as  badly  advised  in  their  sale  of  their  London  property,  as 
they  had  been  well-inspired  in  their  purchase  of  the 
Godalming  site. 

The  end  was  not  quite  yet.  Much  had  to  be  done,  and 
the  mere  buildings  were  not  a  matter  of  a  day.  But  the 
recording  of  these  things  with  any  fullness  seems  to  belong 
rather  to  the  History  of  the  School  at  Godalming  than  to 
this,  though,  since  the  moving  force  was  still  in  London, 
one  may  not  omit  all  notice. 

The  Governors  employed  as  their  architect  Mr.  Philip 
Hardwick,  whose  plans  were  accepted  on  March  18,  1868, 
at  an  estimate  of  £49,000,  which,  in  1870,  was  increased  to 
£58,044,  and  rose  still  higher  presently.  This  sum  included 
the  three  houses  of  the  main  building,  now  called  the 
"  block-houses,"  a  "  Big-School  "  room,  now  the  library, 
with  some  half-dozen  very  inadequate  classrooms  attached, 
a  steam  laundry,  stables,  and  no  more.  The  ground 
purchased  by  the  Governors,  one  may  remind  the  reader, 
included  only  "  Upper  Green,"  the  copse,  and  the  land  on 
which  the  School  buildings  stood,  with  the  outlying  portions 
used  for  the  Headmaster's  kitchen  garden.  Under  Green, 
Lessington,  Broom  Leas  were  still  in  the  far  future,  and 
were  added  chiefly  by  private  venture.  The  building 
estimate  did  not  include  a  chapel.  An  estimate  for  that 
was  presently  given  at  £4,200,  but  for  two  years  the 
School  was  without  a  chapel,  resorting  to  Shackleford 
Church,  two  miles  distant,  on  fine  Sunday  mornings,  with 
an  evening  service  in  "  Big  School  "  in  the  Sunday  evenings. 
In  truth,  the  School  was  at  its  new  start  but  poorly  equipped, 
and  so  remained  for  some  years.  There  was  no  reproach 
to  the  Governors  in  this,  nor  to  the  newly-formed  Governing 
Body  of  the  School.  The  building  costs  soon  gave  the 
go-by  to  the  £90,000  and  went  far  beyond  it.  The 
Governors  were  not  allowed  by  the  Charity  Commissioners 
to  increase  their  debt.  They  were  compelled  to  wait  and 
do  their  addition,  little  by  little,  as  money  came  into  the 


280    SAUNDERS— ELDER— ELWYN—HAIG   BROWN 

till.  It  was  on  this  account  that  the  eight  boarding- 
houses  outside  the  ring  fence — once  there  were  nine — came 
to  be  built,  as  so  many  other  needful  additions  were  made, 
by  private  venture. 

Two  great  changes  which  were  involved  in  the  Removal 
need  to  be  noted.  The  first  was  the  handing  over,  under 
the  regulations  of  the  Charity  Commissioners,  of  the 
government  of  the  School  to  a  Governing  Body  distinct 
from  the  Governors  of  the  Hospital,  who  retained  the 
government  of  the  London  establishment.  The  net 
income  of  the  Hospital  branches  was,  by  the  same  authority, 
divided  into  two  equal  portions.  The  other  great  change 
which  went  hand-in-hand  with  the  Removal  was  the 
abolition  of  the  Nomination  System  for  Foundation  scholars 
and  the  substitution  of  Competitive  Examination.  In- 
stalments of  this  method  had  been  suggested  so  far  back 
as  1813  by  Dr.  Russell,  who  had  advised  the  opening 
of  one  nomination  each  year  by  examination  to  boys 
already  in  the  School.  He  failed  in  his  attempt,  but  in 
1850  Dr.  Saunders  carried  the  matter  through,  and  one 
exhibition  a  year  up  to  the  number  of  four — presently 
enlarged  to  eight — was  granted  to  boys  in  the  School. 
But  in  1864  Lord  Derby,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  pledged 
himself  on  behalf  of  the  Governors,  that  under  no  circum- 
stances would  they  consent  either  to  the  Removal  of  the 
School  or  to  the  opening  of  the  Foundation  Scholarships  to 
competition.  By  the  year  1867  both  these  points  had 
been  conceded. 

The  reader  can  perhaps  realise  how  hard  it  is  for  one, 
who  saw  thirty-three  out  of  the  first  thirty-four  years  of  the 
School's  development  at  Godalming,  to  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  recall  some  memories  of  that  stirring  and  inspiring 
time.  But  to  do  so  would  be  to  go  beyond  the  purpose  of 
this  History,  which  is  that  of  the  Monastery,  Mansion, 
Hospital,  and  School  in  London  only.  The  ground,  too, 
has  already  been  occupied  by  more  capable  writers— by 
Dr.  Haig  Brown  himself,  by  his  son,  Harold  Haig  Brown, 
and  by  Mr.  A.  H.  Tod.  The  day  must  come  again  here- 
after when  fresh  histories  will  have  to  be  written  to  include 


THE    REMOVAL  281 

the  future  vicissitudes  of  our  Great  School,  and  to  record 
the  deeds  of  Carthusians  yet  unborn.  Already  the 
Carthusians  of  the  forty  years  that  have  passed  since  the 
School  left  its  old  home  in  London  have  helped  to  make 
History.  May  the  list  always  have  on  it  names  as  noble 
as  those  that  made  its  History  in  the  Past. 

GERALD  S.  DA  VIES. 

Master's  Lodge,  Charterhouse,  B.C. 
The  Feast  of  the  Salutation, 
1914. 


AFTERMATH 

IT  would  have  been  out  of  place  to  interrupt  the  course 
of  sober  history  by  the  constant  insertion  of  personal 
reminiscences,  and  yet,  since  the  writer  is  one  of  the  few 
who  are  left  to  tell  the  tale  of  school  life  in  London  before 
the  Removal,  I  feel  that  some  sort  of  a  sketch  of  things  as 
they  were  will  be  of  more  than  a  passing  interest  to  those 
who  only  know  things  as  they  are.  But  the  reader  must  be 
warned  that  he  will  find  nothing  here  but  a  mere  disjointed 
set  of  memories,  which,  however,  may  help  him  to  add 
some  tinge  of  local  colour  to  the  picture. 

I  came  to  Charterhouse  on  Jan.  25,  1856,  a  month  or 
two  after  I  was  ten  years  old.  I  well  remember  my  arrival 
at  the  great  gates,  and  how  I  was  forthwith  despatched  to 
the  Medical  Officer's  house  to  be  examined,  and  to  have 
my  achievements  in  the  way  of  epidemics  duly  recorded. 
I  had  had  nothing  at  all  so  far — not  even  medicine.  And 
having  come  through  triumphantly,  I  was  taken  thence 
to  the  Headmaster  to  see  if  I  was  "  less  apt  for  learning 
than  some  are."  The  entrance  examination  was  hardly 
so  successful  as  the  other.  I  had  no  Greek  and  not  much 
more  Latin.  And  nothing  else  counted  in  those  days. 
So,  having  asserted  that  "  Monivi  "  was  the  perfect  tense 
of  Moneo,  I  was  duly  passed,  and  began  life  as  the  lowest 
(likewise  the  smallest)  boy  in  the  School,  at  the  bottom  of 
the  Under  Petties.  Here  is  the  list  of  the  Forms  as  they 
then  stood — 

VI  Form>| 
V  Form  I     Upper  School. 

Under  Vj 

282 


THE    SCHOOL    IN  1856  283 

IV  Form  [exempt  from  fagging]. 

Shell. 

Ill  Form. 

II  Form. 

I  Form. 

Upper  Petties. 

Under  Petties. 

I  am  not  sure  if  I  wasn't  placed  too  high — but  it  is  too 
late  to  remedy  that  now.  What  a  crew  of  little  irresponsibles 
we  were  in  the  "  Petties  "  to  be  sure  !  Our  education  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  Rev.  C.  R.  Dicken  (who  had  been  an 
assistant  Master  under  Russell).  He  did  not  appear  in 
School  till  ten  o'clock — and  he  generally  read  the  Times 
while  we  "  prepared."  It  was  our  chief  ambition  to  untie 
Dicken's  shoestrings,  while  he  was  absorbed  in  the  news- 
paper, without  being  found  out.  Successes  to  failures 
were  in  the  proportion  of  about  three  to  one. 

There  was  a  general  examination  once  a  year  in  Long 
Quarter — April — when  almost,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the 
entire  Form  moved  up.  You  had  to  know  less  than  nothing 
to  escape  promotion.  "  Double  promo,"  i.e.  a  promotion 
in  between,  was  rare  and  highly  valued.  It  may  be  said 
that  the  Form  teaching  (except  in  the  Petties)  was,  with 
very  few  exceptions,  good  during  the  nine  years  that  I  was 
in  the  School.  The  mathematics  were,  however,  taught 
by  the  Form  masters,  except  in  the  case  of  the  highest 
division.  And  the  French  teaching  was  admittedly  almost 
a  farce,  though  it  was  in  the  hands  of  a  highly  cultivated 
gentleman,  Alphonse  Mariette,  who  accepted  the  situation 
and  caused  us  very  little  annoyance  as  a  rule. 

There  were  only  three  classrooms.  The  Forms  for 
the  most  part,  when  not  up  to  a  master,  did  their  work  in 
"  Big  School,"  and  some  were  even  taken  there  "  In 
Form."  "  Horseshoes" — semicircular  cockpits  with  a  seat 
all  round  the  inside — were  used  for  the  purpose,  and, 
though  not  without  drawbacks,  cause  much  less  waste  of 
time,  where  places  have  to  be  taken,  than  the  fixed  desk 
system.  But  the  distraction  caused  by  taking  a  number 
of  Forms  in  one  great  room  was  quite  another  matter.  If, 


284  AFTERMATH 

for  example,  while  you  were  up  to  lesson  in  a  "  Horse- 
shoe "  a  free  fight  was  going  on  in  the  Form  that  was  down 
(each  master  took  two  Forms — one  up,  one  down — and 
this  was  at  first  the  practice  also  at  Godalming),  it  was 
difficult  to  keep  your  attention  fixed  upon  the  more  formal 
engagements  of  Julius  Caesar. 

Every  boy  had  the  understood  right  of  going  out  once 
in  each  school  for  ten  minutes.  Two  boys  were  allowed 
out  at  a  time  from  each  form.  It  was  realised,  however, 
after  250  years'  experience — our  Great  Foundation  was 
never  prone  to  make  changes  on  imperfect  evidence — that 
the  meeting  of  these  units  outside  was  apt  to  lead  to 
impromptu  cricket  matches,  and  the  system  came  to  an 
end  under  Dr.  Haig  Brown. 

Our  day  was  divided  as  follows  (summer  and  winter 
alike) : — Prayers  and  first  school,  8  a.m.  Breakfast, 
8.30.  Second  school,  9.30  (10  for  the  VI)  to  12.  Dinner, 
1  o'clock.  Third  school,  2  to  4.  Tea,  7  o'clock.  Banco, 
8  to  9.  House  prayers,  9  o'clock,  at  which  time  Under 
School  went  to  bed,  Upper  School  sitting  up  till  11 
o'clock. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  afternoon  school  was 
always  from  2  to  4  o'clock,  and  consequently,  in  the  depth 
of  winter,  there  was  little  time  for  games.  The  explana- 
tion of  this  very  bad  arrangement  lay  in  the  fact  that 
"  Big  School "  was  unprovided  with  gas,  or,  indeed, 
artificial  light  of  any  sort.  Indeed,  when  a  London  fog 
came  on — and  London  fogs  in  those  days  were  far  more 
frequent  and  far  denser  than  now — the  greater  part  of 
the  School  was  sent  out  to  obtain  lights.  Candle  ends, 
tapers,  tallow  dips  stuck  into  stone  ginger-beer  bottles, 
were  the  chief  illuminants.  But  study-fags  could  com- 
mand more  fancy  articles.  Big  School  on  these  occasions 
was  a  strange  sight,  with  its  irregular  dotting  of  lights 
through  the  thick  darkness.  There  were,  however,  always 
in  every  Form  one  or  two  of  the  evil-disposed  who  were 
ready,  by  the  rapid  sliding  of  a  good-sized  book  all  along 
the  line  of  desk,  to  plunge  the  Form  in  darkness.  It  has 


285 

been  ever  thus  with  those  who  are  "  less  apt  to  learn  than 
some  others." 

It  will  be  readily  seen  from  all  this  that  any  success 
which  masters  had  in  getting  their  forms  taught  was  not 
due  to  the  machineries  with  which  they  were  equipped. 
That  they  had  such  success  can  be  judged  from  the  records 
of  the  School. 

On  Wednesday  every  Form  in  the  School,  from  the  second 
form  upwards — the  poet's  soul  was  not  vexed  with  verse 
till  he  got  into  the  second  Form — did  Latin  verses.  In 
the  earliest  days  of  the  School  it  had  been  a  regulation  of 
the  Governors  that  every  Gownboy  in  the  Upper  School 
should  make  and  exhibit  on  the  School  board  an  exercise 
in  Latin  verse.  This  nailing  of  your  atrocities  to  the 
board,  like  owls  upon  a  barn  door,  had  ceased  to  be  law 
in  my  day,  but  Latin  verses  were  still  done  on  Wednesdays 
by  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  School.  In  that  day,  when  Richard 
Claverhouse  Jebb  was  in  Gownboys,  there  was  generally 
to  be  found,  outside  his  study  door,  a  queue  of  vicarious 
poets  waiting  to  get  some  verses  done  for  them.  It  was 
good  perhaps  for  Jebb  if  for  no  one  else.  And  at  least  it 
ensured  a  consistent  style  in  the  Latin  verse  of  the  School. 
The  method,  however,  could  not  claim  for  itself  the  merit 
of  a  wise  subdivision  of  labour  which  could  be  urged  for 
the  method  of  preparing  Greek  play,  for  example,  in  the 
VI.  One  person,  in  that  case,  construed  aloud,  with  the 
aid  of  Mr.  Bonn's  English  edition — Cribs  were  allowed  to 
the  VI — and  the  last  joined  had  to  look  the  words  out 
afterwards  and  report  to  the  others.  I  make  no  comment 
on  the  value  of  the  process,  which,  I  need  scarcely  say,  was 
supplemented  by  individual  effort  by  any  one  who  took 
any  interest  in  scholarship. 

There  was  one  point  in  which  I  am  compelled  to  say 
that  the  School,  in  its  then  circumstances,  stood  superior 
to  the  School  in  its  subsequent  circumstances — at  any 
rate  so  far  as  I  have  had  any  experience — I  mean  in  the 
matter  of  private  and  individual  reading,  and  especially 
in  English  literature.  No  doubt  the  fact  which  I  have 
recorded  of  the  shutting  into  the  houses  during  the  winter 

u 


286  AFTERMATH 

months  of  all  the  school  after  4  or  4.30,  aided  by  the  fact 
that  the  House  Libraries  were  in  Writing  School  and 
the  Under  Long  Rooms,  and  were  open  daily  there,  led  to 
a  much  larger  use  of  books  than  I  have  ever  known  since. 
The  House  Libraries  were  then  of  high  quality  moreover. 
It  was  a  rare  thing  for  a  member  of  the  Sixth  to  leave  the 
School  without  having  considerable  knowledge  of  English 
literature.  And  a  good  deal  of  private  work  got  done. 
Books  were,  in  fact,  a  main  resource  under  the  circum- 
stances, and,  of  course,  the  absence  of  other  organisations 
and  the  smaller  number  of  preoccupations  had  their 
say  in  the  matter.  The  Public  School  boy  of  to-day,  with 
all  the  hours  of  his  week  mapped  out  for  him,  is  no  longer 
thrown  on  his  own  resources. 

Life  in  the  Houses  in  that  day  was,  no  doubt,  far 
more  Spartan  than  in  these.  I  have  already  said  that 
in  that  respect  Charterhouse  of  my  day  was  not,  so  far 
as  I  know,  very  conspicuous  or  very  different  from  other 
schools.  All  schools  alike  have  adopted  a  higher  standard 
of  comfort.  We  were  called  at  7.  There  were  no  washing 
appliances  in  the  bedrooms.  We  had  to  go  down,  across 
some  very  cold  stone  passages  with  free  opening  to  the  outer 
air,  to  "  Cocks  "  *  wherein  were  the  usual  plug  basins, 
and  a  gigantic  hot-water  tap.  As  all  Under  School  had 
to  be  out  of  Cocks  before  7.45  to  make  room  for  Upper 
School,  and  as  the  basins  were  not  numerous  and  we 
deferred  our  descent  to  the  last  moment,  a  large  number 
resorted  to  the  tap,  primitive  but  effective,  after  which 
we  returned  to  our  bedrooms  and  finished  our  dressing. 
School  door  was  closed  at  8  o'clock  to  the  moment,  and 
it  was  no  uncommon  thing  to  see  "  Uppers "  rushing 
schoolwards  with  a  coat  and  waistcoat  on  one  arm  and  a 
pair  of  braces  on  the  other,  in  the  despairing  hope  that  they 
could  complete  the  operation  inside  the  porch  of  Big  School 
(which  they  often  did). 

Breakfast    for    the    Under    School  was    at   8.30;    for 

*  Gownboy  "  Cocks  "  was  a  portion  of  "  Cloisters "  divided 
off  and  fitted  with  basins,  taps,  etc. 


DAILY   FOOD  287 

Upper  School  at  9.0.     We  had,  as  Unders,  a  roll  and  a 
pat  of  butter  and  half  a  pint  of  milk.     When  you   got 
to  the  Fourth  Form  you  had   a  pint  of  tea    instead  of 
milk,  and  an  Upper  had  the  privilege  of  having  his  tea 
(which,   however,   he  bought  for    himself)  or    his    coffee 
made    in  his  own    private  pot    by  his  own  private   fag. 
Through  the  services  of  that  same  fag,  moreover,  he  could 
indulge  in  many  nice  fancies  with  regard  to  the  dressing 
of  his  roll  or  his  toast — plain  toast,  buttered  toast,  frits 
(a  round  of  bread  buttered  and  then  toasted — requiring 
skill  and  patience),  splits  (a  round  toasted  on  both  sides, 
then  divided  and  retoasted — the  man  who  could  do  this 
really  well  was  an  artist),  and  "  frittered  splits,"  an  achieve- 
ment only  possible  to  genius.     The  scene  at  the  big  fire 
in    Writing  School   when  every  fag  was  trying  to  cook 
these  various  and  precarious  delicacies  was  unforgettable. 
It  brought  out  evil  passions  at  times.     There  was,  as  in 
after  life,  always  the  self-assertive  person  who  shoved  you 
out  of  your  special  hole  and  took  it  himself.     It  is  true, 
if  this  thing  was  done  too  outrageously,  it  was  an  unwritten 
law  that  you  might  "  bar  his  round,"  i.e.  ram  his  precious 
toast  against  the  red-hot  bars.      Sometimes  you  availed 
yourself  of  this  law — that  is  to  say,  if  the  other  fellow  was 
smaller  than  you  were — not  else.     Dinner  was,  for  Gown- 
boys,  not  in  the  House  but  in  the  Gownboy  Dining  Hall,* 
at  the  south  end  of  the  cloisters,  which  acted  for  us  as  a 
covered  approach.     The  dinner,  I  may  say  at  once,  was 
good  and  ample  and  well  cooked,  but  with  a  certain  red 
tape  monotony  which  was  somewhat  typical  of  the  place. 
You  could  tell   pretty  well,  if  anybody  had  cared  to  look 
so  far  forward,  what  you  would  be  eating  that  day  year, 
that  is  to  say,  if  you  knew  what  you  were  eating  at  the 
hour  itself.     And  nothing  was  ever  allowed  to  vary  the 
routine.     Thus  there  was  a  certain  plum-pudding,  known 
as  "  stodge,"  which  was  served  on  Sundays.     I    may  at 
once  admit  that  it  was   quite  good  food.     But  at  some 
time  or  other  it  had  been  condemned  by  one  of  the  influences 
that  be  in  a  House.    And  for  years  and  years  no  one  touched 
*  This  room  is  now  the  Brothers'  Library. 


288  AFTERMATH 

it.  One  might  have  thought  that — though  its  rejection 
was  on  its  merits  unjustifiable — some  occasion  might  have 
been  seized  by  the  authorities  to  have  withdrawn  the 
much-maligned  dish,  say,  for  example,  the  beginning  of 
a  new  quarter  or  a  new  year.  But  year  in  and  year  out 
that  pudding  came  in  and  went  forth,  and  no  official 
suggested  a  change.  At  last,  one  day  a  certain  person 
of  independent  character  (I  may  not  name  him),  and 
of  a  position  to  carry  it  through,  ate  that  pudding  while 
the  House  had  to  wait  patiently  and  watch  him.  He 
repeated  the  process  Sunday  after  Sunday.  Somebody 
else  fell  in  with  his  fancy,  and  then  somebody  else ;  and 
then  everybody.  And  the  pudding — always  religiously 
served  in  full  bulk  as  for  the  entire  House, — which  had 
year  after  year  gone  out  uneaten,  came  at  last  to  its  own. 

The  evening  meal,  6.30  for  Unders  and  7.0  for 
Uppers,  was  a  repetition  of  breakfast.  During  the  greater 
part  of  the  tune  that  I  was  at  Charterhouse  no  meat 
was  given  with  breakfast  and  tea,  but  at  the  end  of  the 
time  meat  was  given  at  one  of  these  meals.  We  could 
reinforce  our  meals  at  our  own  expense  by  relishes  bought 
from  the  House  butler  or  from  the  shop. 

The  said  shop  was  conducted  in  a  very  small  under- 
ground den  or  dungeon  about  eight  feet  square  below  the 
classroom  at  the  west  end  of  Big  School.  The  shopman, 
one  Tolfree,  attended  twice  a  week  on  Wednesdays  and 
Saturdays  from  2  to  4,  or  till  such  time  as  the  supply 
held  out.  On  an  extra  half-holiday  he  had  to  be  specially 
summoned.  He  lived  in  Wilderness  Row — I  may  mention, 
by  the  way,  that  both  he  and  his  father  before  him  held 
a  similar  office  at  Westminster  School,  where  they  tossed 
the  pancake  on  Shrove  Tuesday — and  on  our  side  of  the 
wall  there  grew  a  tree,  known  as  Big  Tree,  whose  upper 
branches  commanded  a  view  of  Tolfree's  shop.  Fags 
were  sent  up  this  tree  to  holloa  at  the  unhappy  man  till 
he  came.  His  foods  were  excellent  but  simple,  and  few 
in  number,  "  catpies,"  sausage  rolls,  fruit  tarts,  bathbuns, 
penny  buns,  and  abernethies  were  his  unvarying  menu. 
The  refinements  of  the  modern  shop  were  yet  to  come. 


FAGGING  289 

I  have  had  to  speak  several  times  of  fagging.  That 
system  as  it  existed  at  Charterhouse  in  my  day  was 
certainly  very  different  from  anything  which  bears  its  name 
to-day.  It  was  much  severer  and  more  exacting.  To 
many  minds,  indeed,  especially  those  of  the  anxious  parent, 
it  conveyed  a  sense  of  horror  as  something  which  implied 
a  system  of  hard  labour  and  oppression  for  their  boys. 
I  may  say  at  once  that,  having  passed  through  it  at 
a  period  when  it  was  in  its  full  swing,  that  unfavourable 
view  is  not  mine  at  all.  And  so  far  from  regarding  it  as 
a  source  of  oppression  I  should,  having  regard  to  the  con- 
dition of  things  in  Public  Schools  of  that  day,  when  super- 
vision by  master  was  in  embryo,  I  should  reckon  it, 
properly  watched  and  limited,  as  an  important  safeguard 
against  bullying.  Most  Public  School  men  of  that  day 
would,  I  think,  agree  with  me  that  the  really  dangerous 
bullying — the  bullying  which  made  a  lad's  life  a  burden 
to  him — seldom  or  never  came  through  fagging,  nor  from 
the  privileged  "  Upper,"  but  from  the  bully  pure  and 
simple,  often  in  the  same  form,  the  same  bedroom,  as  his 
victims.  The  system  by  which  all  Unders  were  locked 
into  the  bedrooms  at  9.15  contributed  to  this  latter 
result  to  some  degree.  There  were  doubtless  Uppers 
who  were  by  nature  bullies  and  showed  themselves  so, 
but  the  fagging  system  did  not  in  any  way  increase  their 
opportunities,  but  rather  diminished  them,  since,  as  I  shall 
presently  show,  each  fag  who  was  attached  to  a  special 
Upper  would,  in  case  of  being  bullied  by  some  one  else,  find 
a  champion  in  that  same  Upper.  The  system,  however, 
must  be  explained.  Only  the  first  twelve — or  occasionally 
fourteen — members  of  the  House  (in  Gownboys)  were 
granted  their  privileges  as  Uppers  with  the  right  to  fag. 
No  one  below  the  Upper  V  received  those  privileges.  The 
Under  V  were  in  the  waiting  stage  and  the  IV  were  free 
from  fagging.  It  generally  happened  that  the  number 
of  fags  in  the  House  was  considerably  in  excess  of  the 
number  of  Uppers.  Once  only  do  I  remember  a  time 
when  there  was  a  shortage  of  fags — which,  of  course,  made 
things  for  a  time  harder  for  so  many  of  us  as  there  were. 


290  AFTERMATH 

Every  Upper  had  his  own  special  fag  who  made  his 
tea  and  toast,  sometimes  he  had  one  for  each  of  these 
services.  Also  he  had  study  fags,  sometimes  quite  a 
number.  The  standard  of  housemaidery  amongst  us  was 
not,  I  grieve  to  say,  high.  We  "  kicked  up  no  end  of  a 
dust,"  as  a  study  fag  once  said  in  defence  of  his  own  efforts, 
but  we  let  it  settle  down  again  in  the  same  place  as  it  had 
got  up  from.  Our  carpet  beating  and  cushion  banging 
was,  however,  good  for  trade.  And  we  really  did  take  a 
pride  in  our  owner's  studies.  I  may  here  say  with  regard 
to  being  told  off  as  tea  and  toast  fag  (which  included 
other  forms  of  cooking)  to  some  one  Upper,  so  far  from 
our  regarding  it  as  a  tie  or  a  grievance  no  fag  of  any  charac- 
ter was  ever  willing  to  be  without  it,  or  to  find  himself  a  loose 
horse  in  the  House.  Not  to  be  chosen  by  some  one  was 
a  sign  of  incompetence.  And  I  would  not  myself  exchange 
such  slight  experience  in  self-helpfulness  and  resource 
as  one  got  from  it  in  life,  for  things  which  seem  to  be  of 
greater  value.  The  relationship  between  an  Upper  and  his 
special  fag  was  mostly  kindly,  and  I  cannot  think  of  any 
Upper  who  ill  used  his  own  fag. 

But  besides  the  special  relationship  mentioned  above, 
fags  had  to  be  prepared  to  run  messages,  to  answer 
the  cry  of  "  fag,"  and,  within  reason,  to  do  whatever 
they  were  asked.  An  Upper  sitting  in  Gownboy  Hall 
had  only  to  call  "fag"  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  and  the 
nearest  fag — if  there  were  several  present  it  was  the  lowest 
— had  to  answer.  There  is  a  well-known  Charterhouse 
story — as  it  is  told  again  by  the  chief  actor  in  his  History 
of  Charterhouse,*  we  may  accept  it  as  true — of  how  the 
survival  of  this  method  once  saved  the  life,  a  life  most 
valuable  to  Charterhouse,  of  a  well-known  assistant  master 
when  he  was  a  monitor  in  Verites.  He  was  swimming 
in  the  "  bell  hole "  and  found  himself  sinking,  when 
with  great  presence  of  mind  he  called  "  fag."  There  was 
an  immediate  rush  to  answer  it  and  the  situation  was  saved, 
and  so  was  the  monitor. 

Perhaps  the  chief  abuse  of  the  fagging  system  lay  in 
*  A.  H.  Tod. 


FAGGING  291 

the  fact  that  it  left  certain  things  to  be  done  by  fags  which 
should  have  been  done  by  servants.  Thus  the  very  heavy 
coal-scuttles  required  for  our  huge  fireplaces  were  lugged 
about  by  two  appointed  "  fire  fags,"  generally  chosen 
for  their  size  and  strength.  The  "  basinite  "  system  was 
less  objectionable,  though  we  disliked  it,  perhaps,  more 
than  anything  else  because  of  the  waste  of  time  which 
it  involved.  Every  week  three  fags — a  basinite  set — 
were  told  off  to  valet  the  four  monitors.  We  had  to  wait 
on  them  from  7  a.m.  to  the  moment  when  those  great 
men  made  their  final  rush  for  morning  school :  to  dry  their 
towels,  lay  out  their  garments,  to  get  them  hot  water,  and 
the  like.  The  same  again  at  dinner  time  and  the  same 
at  tea  time.  Our  dislike  to  it  was  mainly  due  to  the  fact 
that  it  was  very  dull.  There  was  little  to  do  while  you 
were  waiting  for  the  arrival  of  the  monitors,  but  to  organise 
tallow  candle  races  in  the  Great  House  cistern  hard  by. 
I  have  since  realised  that  that  cistern  must  have  been 
the  source  of  supply  not  merely  of  washing  water  but  of 
drinking  water  to  the  House.  And  since  collisions  between 
the  competing  candlesticks  were  frequent,  and  the  com- 
petitors sank  to  the  bottom  and  remained  there,  it  speaks 
well  for  the  original  purity  of  the  water  supply  that  no 
complaints  were  ever  made  of  its  tasting  of  tallow  candle. 

I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying  that  "  fire  fagging  " 
was  abolished  and  basinites  modified  by  the  Public  School 
Commission,  who,  otherwise,  did  not  find  much  fault  with 
the  Charterhouse  fagging  system.  The  blacking  of  boots 
was,  I  may  mention,  not  a  part,  as  is  usually  supposed, 
of  our  business.  When  my  own  mother  learnt  that  her 
ten-year-old  was  to  go  to  Charterhouse,  she,  like  a  wise 
woman,  set  to  work  to  have  me  taught  in  all  the  utilities 
of  household  life — including  the  art  of  the  shoeblack. 
That  last  equipment  was  not  needed,  yet  I  am  grateful 
for  the  training  which  laid  in  me,  perhaps,  the  foundation 
of  that  technical  knowledge  of  art  which  has  been  such 
a  solace  to  me  through  life. 

There  was  no  sick-room  in  Gownboys  itself.  It  was 
in  the  matron's  house,  a  separate  building  on  the  other 


292  AFTERMATH 

side  of  Scholars'  Court.  It  was,  if  you  were  feeling  really 
bad,  sometimes  a  severe  ordeal  in  winter  or  wet  weather 
to  go  out  at  night  to  seek  the  matron,  and  the  system 
on  paper  was  dangerous.  Yet  I  never  knew  any  harm 
traceable  to  it.  It  is,  indeed,  a  remarkable  fact,  which 
I  have  never  been  able  to  explain  to  myself,  that  with 
very  few  precautions,  and  very  few  machineries  for  health, 
and  indeed  with  very  many  circumstances  which  would 
be  regarded  in  a  modern  Public  School  as  fatal,  we  enjoyed 
an  extraordinary  immunity,  not  only  from  epidemics, 
but  from  serious  individual  illness.  I  was  at  school  nine 
years.  I  can  remember  no  epidemic  which  ever  went 
beyond  six  victims.  That  was  mumps,  if  I  remember 
rightly.  There  was  no  death  in  the  school  in  those  nine 
years,  and  no  case  of  extreme  anxiety.  I  cannot,  for 
example,  recall  any  serious  lung  case.  Appendicitis  had 
not  then  been  invented,  but  none  of  its  substitutes  were 
in  evidence.  No  doubt  Charterhouse  in  London  has  always 
been  an  exceptionally  healthy  place,  but  the  fact  is  not 
enough  to  explain  to  me,  knowing  what  I  do  of  schoolboys 
and  their  illnesses,  how  the  above-mentioned  state  of 
things  came  about.  Written  down  on  paper  the  risks 
seem  very  grave,  yet  in  effect  during  nine  years — and  nine 
years  is  a  long  time — they  seem  to  have  been  non-existent. 
The  Gownboy  matron,  when  I  joined  the  House,  was 
Elizabeth  Jeffkins,  "  Mother  J,"  who  had  been  there 
since  Russell's  day,  who  may  have  set  eyes  on  all  the  great 
ones  of  that  day,  and  who  left  behind  her  a  memory  as 
one  of  the  best  and  kindest  women  who  ever  looked  after 
boys.  She  died,  the  dear  old  lady,  at  the  end  of  my 
first  quarter.  Our  medical  officer,  Doctor  John  Miles, 
a  man  whose  knowledge  of  human  nature  perhaps  was 
in  advance  of  his  medical  science,  must  at  least  claim 
the  praise  of  having  kept  us  healthy  by  simple  means. 
He  had,  in  his  repertoire,  two  main  remedies.  If  he  sus- 
pected a  boy  of  wishing  to  sham  he  gave  him  black  draught ; 
if  he  thought  he  was  really  unwell  he  gave  him  brown 
mixture.  The  would-be  shammer  feared  the  black,  the 
ailing  boy  feared  the  brown,  and  so  on  the  whole  the  sick  list 


GAMES  293 

was  kept  fairly  free.  There  was,  I  know,  a  third  remedy 
known  as  white  mixture,  but  I  have  no  idea  what  class  of 
crime  this  was  intended  to  meet ;  and  I  have  even  heard 
of  a  fever  mixture,  but  I  think  it  was  a  mere  ideal.  I 
would  add  that  I  never  heard  of  a  clinical  thermometer 
in  the  matron's  house,  in  those  days,  and  I  doubt  its 
existence.  I  am  sure  that  there  was  no  boy  in  the  School 
who  knew  (or  cared)  what  his  temperature  ought  to  be. 

Though  games  had  not  then  taken  the  place  either 
at  Charterhouse  or  any  other  Public  School  which  they 
now  hold,  they  were  then,  as  they  always  will  be,  of  great 
importance  in  the  schoolboy  mind.  To  cricket,  of  course,  the 
first  place  was  given.  Upper  Green  was  given  over  entirely 
to  the  Upper  eleven,  and  to  the  immediate  candidates  for 
that  eleven,  for  practice  and  for  matches ;  while  Under  Green 
was  used  by  the  second  eleven  and  by  all  the  rest  of  the 
school.  By  plentiful  rolling,  beating,  and  watering — all  of 
which  we  did  ourselves — we  obtained  on  Upper  Green  very 
decent  pitches,  though  by  no  means  the  run-getting  pitches 
known  to  the  present-day  Carthusian.  But  in  that  day, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Oval,  Fenner's  ground,  and  the 
Brighton  ground,  there  were  no  run-getting  grounds 
such  as  now  may  be  counted  by  the  score  all  over  England, 
and  we  were  not  far  below  the  average  in  that  respect. 
You  had  to  watch  the  ball,  no  doubt — not  the  worst  thing 
for  a  young  player — and  this  was  true  also  of  fielding, 
where  the  ball  was  apt  to  come  off  the  buildings — we  ran 
everything  out — at  perplexing  angles.  But  good  cricketers 
were  made  out  of  that  ground,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  numbers  from  which  choice  could  be  made  were  so 
small — less,  often,  than  a  hundred,  since  day-boys,  as  a 
rule,  took  very  little  share  in  games.  Confining  myself 
to  my  own  time,  we  had  the  Rev.  F.  G.  Inge  (I  was  his 
cricket  fag),  who  played  for  Oxford  in  those  vintage  years 
which  saw  Inge  himself  and  R.  A.  Mitchell  in  the  dark 
blue  and  the  Hon.  C.  G  Lyttelton,  Plowden,  and  Daniell 
for  light  blue.  A  little  later,  Sir  Courtenay  E.  Boyle  played 
several  years  for  Oxford  and  the  Rev.  C.  E.  B.  Nepean 
kept  wicket  for  that  University.  We  played,  as  a  rule, 


294  AFTERMATH 

no  other  school  at  cricket  in  those  days,  and  the  foreign 
matches  by  which  we  set  most  store  were  I.  Zingari,  M.C.C., 
the  Guards,  and  Royal  Engineers.  There  was  a  tradition, 
by  the  way,  that  he  who  hit  the  chapel  clock  thereby  won 
the  match.  I  never  saw  it  done,  though  it  was  by  no 
means  an  impossible  stroke.  There  was  one  practice 
wicket  whence  the  attempt  was  often  made ;  but  though 
the  windows  of  the  Reader — long-suffering  man — were 
often  broken  close  by,  the  clock  itself  remained  un- 
touched. 

Football  in  the  open  was  in  those  years,  1856-64,  in  its 
pupa  condition.  The  schools  which  played  the  Rugby 
game  had,  of  course,  for  many  years  lived  under  a  settled 
constitution.  But  the  day  of  Association  football  was  not 
yet.  That  game  did  not  receive  its  charter  in  the  shape 
of  set  rules  to  be  observed  all  over  England  till,  I  think, 
the  year  1865.  Meanwhile,  Charterhouse,  Westminster, 
and  one  or  two  other  schools  played  each  their  own  game 
in  the  open.  Our  own  game  and  that  of  Westminster 
came,  perhaps,  the  nearest  to  Association  as  it  was  after- 
wards created.  It  is  needless  to  say,  however,  that  the 
distribution  of  the  field  as  we  now  know  it  had  no  existence. 
Goalkeeper  was  the  only  member  of  an  eleven  to  whom  a 
definite  post  was  assigned.  The  other  ten  men  played 
each  on  his  own  account  to  get  the  ball  and  keep  it  and,  if 
possible,  get  it  between  the  enemy's  goal-posts.  The 
names  "  forward,"  "  wings,"  "  centre,"  "  half-back," 
"  back  "  were  unknown,  and  indeed  did  not  come  into 
existence  until  "  Association  "  had  gone  some  little  time 
on  its  way.  The  art  of  passing  was  scarcely  heeded.  It 
was,  in  a  certain  sense,  a  selfish  game  compared  to  the 
present-day  development.  Handling  the  ball  was  allowed, 
and  the  ball,  if  caught,  or  stopped  at  first  bound,  might  be 
used  in  a  drop-kick.  In  other  respects,  with  regard  to  the 
rules  (unwritten)  of  charging,  offside,  etc.,  the  game  was 
much  as  it  is  now.  And  it  was,  even  as  it  stood,  a  very 
good  game,  having  in  it  all  the  undeveloped  possibilities  of 
the  beautiful  game  of  to-day.  It  was  between  the  years 
1859  and  1864  that  the  rules  were  printed,  for  the  first 


FOOTBALL  295 

time,  so  far  as  I  know.  The  elevens  which  were  captained 
by  the  Rev  Tames  Butter,  G.  J.  Cookson,  B.  F.  Hartshorne, 
Lord  Muu  Mackenzie,  and  Edgar  Gibson  (Bishop  of 
Gloucester)  were  those  which  witnessed  the  great  change 
when  the  open  game,  fostered  chiefly  by  Charterhouse  and 
Westminster,  blossomed  into  the  new  "  Association " 
game.  And  it  may  be  said  at  once  that  amongst  those 
elevens  were  players  who,  individually,  have  hardly  been 
surpassed,  even  in  the  brilliant  days  of  Charterhouse  foot- 
ball which  were  to  follow.  The  ground  (Under  Green),  it 
may  be  said,  was  very  fast. 

Cloister  football  may  claim  a  much  higher  antiquity, 
but  I  have,  in  the  absence  of  all  records,  totally  failed  to 
discover  how  long  it  had  existed  under  any  kind  of  organised 
rule.  "  Cloisters,"  my  readers  will  remember,  was  the 
long,  brick,  barrel-vaulted  arcade  which  the  fourth  Duke 
of  Norfolk  had  built  upon  the  site  of  the  monastery  cloister 
ambulatory  to  lead  from  his  mansion  to  his  tennis  court. 
It  had  a  blind  wall  on  the  west  side  (the  front  of  the  old 
line  of  cells)  and  was  about  10  ft.  broad,  with  buttresses 
on  its  east  side  separating  windows  which  opened  on 
to  Green,  at  a  height  of  some  3  ft.  6  ins.  from  the 
ground.  At  the  north  end  of  this  arcade  was  a  narrow 
door  opening  into  Gownboys  ;  at  the  south  end  a  similar 
door  opened  on  to  Green.  And  these  two  doors  were  the 
goals.  When  the  game  was  played  by  a  limited  number 
of  players — say,  nine  a  side  or,  even  better  still,  six  a  side — 
it  was  a  really  fine  game.  But  when  a  big  game  was 
ordered,  such  as  Gownboys  v.  School,  in  which  all  fags  had 
to  block  the  respective  goals  and  the  mass  of  players  filled 
the  arcade,  it  was,  in  my  opinion,  a  very  poor  game  indeed, 
consisting  of  a  series  of  "  squashes  "  or  dead  blocks,  in 
which  the  ball  was  entirely  lost  to  sight,  and  a  mass  of 
humanity  surged  and  heaved  senselessly,  often  for  as  much 
as  half  an  hour  at  a  time.  But,  whether  played  by  many 
of  by  few,  the  game  was  unavoidably  rough.  Hard  knocks 
had  to  be  taken  cheerfully.  A  fierce  charge  was  apt  to 
send  a  player  with  his  head  against  the  wall,  and  much  skin 
was  lost  at  times.  But  it  was  a  fine  training  for  keeping 


296  AFTERMATH 

the  temper  under  very  trying  circumstances.  Strange  to 
say,  however,  I  never  remember  a  serious  injury  nor  a 
broken  bone  at  the  Cloister  game. 

Racquets,  like  open  football,  was  for  us  at  least  in  a 
very  prehistoric  stage.  I  have  spoken  elsewhere  of  two 
open  courts  which  existed  in  the  north-east  corner  of 
Green,  hard  up  against  Verites.  One  of  these  had  a  side 
wall  of  a  kind,  the  other  was  a  mere  paved  court  with  one 
wall.  These  courts  had  been  always  used  for  a  kind  of 
bat  fives,  played  with  an  ordinary  racquet  ball  and  a 
wooden  "  bat  "  of  the  shape  and  size  of  a  battledore.  It 
was  called  "  tennis,"  having,  however,  strangely  little 
resemblance  to  that  ancient  game.  But,  somewhere  early 
in  the  'sixties,  after  the  replastering  and  improvement  of 
the  walls,  a  proper  racquet  was  used,  and  the  game  took 
the  form  of  racquets  so  nearly  as  it  might,  under  its 
imperfect  conditions,  without  side  walls.  At  the  end  of 
1864,  however,  the  Racquet  Cup  was  instituted — for 
single  racquets — by  the  present  (1914)  Master  of  Charter- 
house and  George  E.  Smythe,  a  very  humble  commence- 
ment to  the  game  in  which  Charterhouse  was  to  become 
famous. 

We  had  no  fives  courts,  a  fact  which  I  am  afraid  was 
somewhat  typical  of  the  singular  want  of  enterprise  on  the 
part  of  the  authorities  so  far  as  our  games  were  concerned, 
though  it  resulted  perhaps  in  a  larger  amount  of  enterprise 
on  our  own  part.  There  were  quite  a  number  of  places 
round  and  about  where,  by  a  little  paving  and  plastering, 
courts  might  have  been  made  as  individual  in  character 
and  as  good  for  the  game  as  the  Eton  pepper-box  court. 
But  they  came  not,  and  we  were  content  to  get  casual 
knock-ups  here,  there,  and  everywhere. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  we  were  no  "  wet  bobs  "  in  any 
shape.  We  lay  too  far  from  the  river  for  boating,  and  the 
deeds  of  Philip  Pearson  (Pennant)  who  rowed  for  Cambridge, 
of  Canon  Weldon  Champneys  (Oxford),  and  Archdeacon 
Seymour  (Oxford)  were  certainly  not  due  to  any  facilities 
which  existed  at  Charterhouse  in  my  day.  I  remember 


ATHLETICS  297 

nothing  in  the  way  of  water  larger  than  the  tosh-cans  with 
which  we  were  in  the  habit  of  watering  Green,  and, 
incidentally,  ourselves  also. 

So,  too,  we  had  no  bathing.  But,  in  the  year  1864, 
when  Dr.  Haig  Brown  became  Headmaster,  he  allowed 
the  VI  to  go  in  summer  to  a  certain  beautiful  bath,  "Peer- 
less pool  "  (originally  "  Perilous  pool  "),  in  Clerkenwell,  to 
our  great  satisfaction. 

"  Athletic  Sports "  took  their  place  amongst  school 
organisations  also  during  these  same  nine  years — the  first 
meeting  was  held,  I  think,  in  1860 — and  they  at  once 
proved  a  success.  The  very  first  year  of  their  institution 
brought  out  no  less  an  athlete  than  Richard  Everard 
Webster  (Lord  Alverstone),  probably  the  best  runner  over 
a  distance  of  ground  that  the  School,  and  Cambridge 
afterwards,  have  ever  produced ;  while,  in  the  same  year, 
Arthur  Frederick  Clarke  (Archdeacon  Clarke),  who  presently 
won  the  three  miles  for  Oxford,  won  the  mile  in  the  third 
class.  The  same  period  saw  the  Hon.  F.  S.  O'Grady  (now 
Lord  Guillamore),  who  represented  Oxford  in  the  high 
jump,  and  William  Heaton  Cooper,  who  was  one  of  the 
best  hurdlers  that  Cambridge  ever  possessed.  The  short 
races  were  run  on  turf,  the  long  races  on  turf  and  rough 
gravel.  The  age  was  not  then  beset  by  the  craze  for 
records,  and  no  comparison  is  possible  between  a  mile  as 
run  to-day  and  a  mile  run  in  that  day  at  Charterhouse, 
especially  when  we  remember  that  a  serious  though  short 
hill  had  to  be  four  times  negotiated  in  completing  the 
distance. 

But  in  no  respect  was  the  difference  between  the 
school  life  of  that  day  and  of  this  more  marked  than  in  the 
lack  of  provision — Charterhouse  was  in  no  way  remarkable 
amongst  Public  Schools  herein — for  any  humanising  tastes, 
outside  of  athletics,  which  a  boy  might  possess.  It  is 
indeed  probable  that  we  were  in  advance  of  a  good  many 
schools  of  that  day.  For  the  Governors  had  made  it  a 
law  that  every  Gownboy  should  learn  to  sing,  whether  he 
had  a  voice  and  an  ear — a  good  many  had  neither — or 
whether  he  had  not.  And  so  every  Monday  and  Thursday, 


298  AFTERMATH 

at  noon,  a  large  number  of  Gownboys,  and  a  percentage  of 
boarders  and  dayboys  who  took  singing  as  an  extra, 
gathered  in  the  Governors'  Room.  John  Hullah,  one  of 
those  famous  musicians  in  the  list  which  holds  the  names  of 
Pepusch  *  and  Cousens,  Stevens  and  Horsley,  was  organist, 
and  conducted  the  class.  He  was  one  of  the  most  cultured 
and  most  fascinating  of  men,  one  who  had  known  Men- 
delssohn in  his  English  visits,  and  a  friend  of  such  men  as 
Charles  Kingsley,  and  many  another  whose  name  counted 
in  that  day.  For  Kingsley,  indeed,  he  set  many  of  his 
best-known  songs  to  music :  "  Three  Fishers,"  "  The 
Storm,"  "  Clear  and  Cool,"  "  The  Last  Buccaneer,"  and 
other  songs  which  deserve  a  longer  life  than  has  been 
given  to  them.  These  were  often  produced  for  the  first 
time  at  the  School  concert  held  in  May,  in  the  Great  Hall. 
It  was  a  rich  treat  when  Hullah,  before  the  arrival  of  the 
body  of  the  class,  would,  to  a  favoured  few  of  us,  sing 
over  one  of  these  new  settings  in  his  fine  baritone  voice. 
But  to  learn  an  instrument — piano,  violin,  violoncello 
— was  hardly  possible.  It  is  true  that  here  and  there 
an  enthusiast  kept  a  piano  in  his  study,  or  even  in  the 
monitors'  room,  but  to  obtain  lessons  on  the  said  instru- 
ments was  wholly  out  of  the  question. 

And  one  other  taste  might  be  cultivated.  Struan 
Robertson,  whose  connection  with  Charterhouse  lasted 
from  first  to  last  for  fifty  years,  ran  the  drawing  class — an 
extra  subject  then — from  2  o'clock  to  4  on  half  holidays. 
A  more  inspiring  and  more  tactful  teacher  could  not  have 
been  chosen,  and,  with  no  machinery  at  his  disposal  and  in 
the  face  of  great  difficulties,  he  kept  his  class  together  and 
produced  some  very  high  results.  But  it  is  obvious  that 
in  so  small  a  School,  where  all  hands — one  may  say  legs 
also — were  needed  for  cricket  and  football,  if  the  School 
was  to  hold  its  own,  it  was  well-nigh  impossible  for  a  boy, 
when  he  reached  the  stage  of  trial  for  the  elevens,  to  work 
at  drawing  on  a  half  holiday.  And  the  production  of 
great  masterpieces  was  seriously  interfered  with.  There 
was  no  Leech  prize  in  those  days — naturally,  since  John 

*  Pepusch  and  Stevens  were  buried  in  Charterhouse  Chapel. 


OTHER   INTERESTS  299 

Leech  *  did  not  die  till  1863 — but  there  were  drawing  prizes 
under  a  different  name. 

And  there  ends  the  list  of  cultured  interests  which 
were  provided  for  Public  School  boys  in  that  day,  whether 
at  Charterhouse  or  elsewhere,  so  far  as  I  know.  As  I  have 
already  pointed  out,  however,  this  fact,  combined  with 
other  circumstances,  drove  us  largely  to  the  resource  of 
reading  in  our  odd  half-hours  in  the  House,  and  the  House 
libraries  were  of  such  excellent  quality  and  so  wisely  laid 
open  to  our  use,  and  so  ready  to  our  hand,  that  a  compensa- 
tion was  by  no  means  wanting.  And  here  I  think  that  my 
contemporaries  would  wholly  agree  with  me. 

I  have  tried  to  describe  faithfully  the  features  which 
made  up  our  ordinary  life  at  the  School  in  those  days. 
There  were,  of  course,  a  large  variety  of  unconsidered 
trifles  that,  as  one  looks  back,  went  to  make  up  the  picture. 
Our  life  was  of  necessity — and  I  am  quite  sure  of  the 
wisdom  of  this  restriction — a  cloistered  life,  shut  off  as 
far  as  possible  from  all  touch  with  London  except  on 
"  going-out "  Saturdays  (weekly  for  Upper  School  and 
fortnightly  for  Under  School),  when  from  noon  on  Saturday 
to  nine  o'clock  on  Sunday — afterwards  reduced  to  seven 
o'clock  when  the  special  School  services  were  instituted — 
boys  were  allowed,  with  written  invitation,  to  go  out  to 
friends.  Otherwise  we  never  passed  the  gates.  I  think 
it  must  have  happened  to  myself,  who  had  not  many  friends 
in  London,  to  have  several  times  passed  a  whole  quarter 
without  going  outside.  Let  me  assure  the  reader  that  we 
felt  it — most  of  us — no  imprisonment.  We  got  the  run  of 
many  things  from  which  we  were  perhaps  crowded  out  on 
other  days. 

And  let  no  one  suppose  that  the  refining  influences  of 
the  outer  world  did  not  penetrate  to  our  seclusion.  I  can 
remember  the  fevered  excitement  which  seized  upon  all 

*  John  Leech  and  William  Makepeace  Thackeray  dined  on 
Founder's  Day,  1863,  for  the  last  time.  Both  were  nominated  as 
Stewards  of  Founder's  Day,  1864 — on  which  day  the  present  (1914) 
Master  of  Charterhouse  made  the  Latin  oration.  But  both  were 
dead  before  that  day  came  round. 


300  AFTERMATH 

r 

classes  in  England  in  the  month  that  preceded  the  great 
fight  between  little  Mr.  Thomas  Sayers  and  tall  Mr.  John 
Heenan.  We  go  mad  over  sport  nowadays  too  many 
times  in  a  week  to  concentrate  our  madness  into  a  single 
dementity  such  as  that  was.  The  shops  were  ablaze  with 
small  flags,  handkerchiefs,  and  coloured  prints  of  the  two 
men  with  their  previous  achievements.  Lithographs  and 
woodcuts  were  sold  in  every  shape  and  at  every  corner. 
It  was  said — but  "  let  them  say  "• — that  bishops,  including 
several  leading  Governors  of  Charterhouse,  were  present 
at  the  fight  in  plain  clothes  and  false  noses.  Every  day 
sheets  and  sheets  of  the  productions,  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  found  their  way  into  Charterhouse,  via  day-boys 
and  the  servants,  and  were  duly  posted  on  the  notice 
boards  of  the  Long-rooms.  The  French  Master's  room, 
"  New  School,"  was  decorated  for  him  with  a  collection, 
which,  if  it  existed  to-day,  might  sell  for  a  king's  ransom. 
But  the  owners  merely  paid  for  them  in  French  "lines"  which 
never  got  done.  Better  still  do  I  remember  the  morning 
after  the  fight,  when  the  Times  appeared  with  the  whole 
of  one  side  devoted  to  the  details,  and  even  the  Headmaster 
so  far  gave  himself  away  as  to  make  to  the  Vlth  furtive 
allusions  to  Dares  and  Entellus,  to  Epeius  and  Euryalus. 

I  am  reminded  here  that  I  was  unjust  in  a  previous 
page  in  omitting  Fencing  and  Boxing  as  two  of  the  tastes 
which  a  boy  might  cultivate.  Angelo,  whose  name  was  a 
household  word  in  London  of  that  day,  attended  once  a 
week  in  Gownboy  Writing  School.  He  had  among  his 
teachers  one  magnificent  ex-guardsman,  who  taught 
boxing,  and  whose  reputation  stood  so  high  that  he  had 
even  been  matched — but  it  never  came  off — to  box  with 
Jem  Mace,  champion  of  England — the  boxer,  not  so  much 
the  fighter  (the  two  things  had  a  difference  in  those  days), 
of  all  time.  From  this  admirable  teacher  I  had  many 
most  valuable  clouts  on  the  head. 

Our  Assembly  of  Governors  of  that  date  contained  one 
or  two  men  who,  from  time  to  time,  had  a  Derby  favourite 
— Lord  Derby,  to  wit,  and  Lord  Palmerston.  Sir  Joseph 
Hawley,  too — a  Carthusian  though  not  a  Governor,  and 


GOVERNORS'   MEETINGS  301 

almost  as  good  a  judge  of  art  and  letters  as  he  was  of  a 
horse — had  a  way  of  winning  Derbies — he  did  so  four  times 
in  all — and  we  did  not  fail  to  make  record  of  the  Carthusian 
triumph.  We  had  our  shilling  and  sixpenny  sweeps — 
honourably  conducted,  I  am  sure,  though  I  never  drew  a 
starter,  but  without  perhaps  the  knowledge  that  should 
underlie  these  enterprises.  For  example,  since  the  daily 
papers  did  not  then  give  complete  lists  of  "  probable 
starters,"  we  were  at  the  mercy  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
promoters,  which  did  not  go  far.  And  if  you  drew  a 
probable  starter  it  was  one  which  had  probably  started 
the  year  before.  These  little  uncertainties,  however, 
served  to  discourage  gambling,  though  not  so  effectually 
as  the  method  adopted  by  a  certain  House  Master — 
though  at  a  later  period — who,  hearing  of  a  Derby  sweep 
in  his  House,  sent  for  the  promoter,  learnt  who  had  drawn 
what,  and  undertook  to  hold  the  stakes.  That  night, 
after  the  race,  he  solemnly  read  out  the  names  of  the 
winners  in  his  Long  Room  and,  calling  them  up,  sent  them 
with  their  winnings  to  the  Treasurer  of  the  Charterhouse 
Lifeboat.  It  is  said  that  Derby  sweeps  hung  fire  in  that 
House  for  many  years. 

When  I  speak  of  Governors  I  ought  not  to  omit  one 
feature  in  the  life  of  us  Gownboys  by  which  we  were 
brought,  from  time  to  time,  into  the  presence  of  very 
famous  men.  Whenever  there  was  a  Governors'  Assembly 
there  was  a  special  half  holiday,  which,  however,  was  lost 
upon  Gownboys,  since  we  were  called  upon  to  form  a  guard 
of  honour  in  the  lobby  of  the  Master's  Lodge.  There  we 
waited,  skirmishing  about  in  the  entrance  court,  till  the 
porter  in  his  gorgeous  gown,  as  a  Governor's  coach  hove 
in  sight,  shouted  the  warning :  "  'Arrowby,"  "  'Owe," 
"  Palmerston,"  "  Russell,"  "  Durby,"  and  we  hustled  into 
our  places,  while  the  great  men  walked  between  our  lines 
into  the  Master's  Lodge. 

One  appalling  incident  can  never  be  forgotten.  As 
Lord  John  Russell,  his  hat  pressed  down  on  to  his  shoulders, 
his  wizened  and  expressive  countenance  half  hidden  by, 
and  half  projecting  from,  his  many-folded  stock,  passed 


302  AFTERMATH 

along  to  the  door,  a  certain  Gownboy,  who  stammered 
badly  and  who  also  imagined  himself  to  be  talking  in  a 
whisper,  was  heard  to  say  in  the  most  audible  voice, 
"  This  way  to  the  monkey  house  !  "  And  the  interview 
which  the  monitors  subsequently  held  with  that  Gownboy 
was  understood  to  be  not  wholly  for  his  peace.  But  if 
any  one  ever  suffered  through  these  ceremonies — which  I 
can  only  look  back  upon  with  the  greatest  interest — some 
others  gained.  For  it  was  the  custom  for  a  Governor  to 
tip  his  nominee  if  he  saw  him  in  the  line.  The  modest 
youth  used  to  be  pushed  forward  a  little  by  his  sym- 
pathising fellows — not  perhaps  wholly  unmindful  of  the 
probable  "  sport "  of  a  pot  of  jam  at  tea  that  night. 
Royalty  never  came,  and  those  who  were  Royal  nominees 
had  to  wrap  themselves  up  in  their  pride  and  go  without 
tips. 

Of  Founder's  Day,  as  it  was  then  celebrated,  a  word 
should  be  written.  Gownboys  only  remained  behind  for 
Dec.  12,  the  rest  of  the  School  having  gone  home  the 
day  before.  We  ate,  of  course,  strange  foods  in  large 
amounts  at  breakfast  and  dinner  in  Hall  in  Gownboys, 
and  at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  came  the  Memorial 
Service  in  Chapel,  which  was  followed  by  the  annual  Latin 
oration  delivered  by  the  head  Gownboy  in  the  Governors' 
room.  The  oration  took  a  wide  range,  dealing  with  many 
points  of  public  and  of  Carthusian  interest ;  *  and  when  it 
ended  the  vistors  advanced  one  at  a  time  to  the  Rostra 
and  placed  a  gift  in  the  orator's  trencher.  On  at  least 
one  occasion  the  sum  discovered  in  the  hat,  when  all  was 
over,  amounted  to  over  £200.  The  little  wooden  pulpit, 
dignified  by  the  name  of  the  Rostra,  still  remains  in  the 
Governors'  room. 

Then  followed  the  dinner,  which  did  not  differ  from 
the  same  function  in  these  days.  Thackeray  was  a  frequent 
visitor  on  Founder's  Day,  as  on  other  occasions.  He 
dined  and  spoke  at  Founder's  Day  dinner  on  Dec.  12, 
1863,  twelve  days  before  his  death;  John  Leech,!  remember, 

*  So  many  of  these  orations  are  extant  that  I  may  refer  the 
Carthusian  reader  to  them  without  further  description. 


THACKERAY  803 

sitting  nearly  opposite  to  him.  It  was  a  great  delight  to 
us  Gownboys  to  get  him  after  one  of  these  dinners,  as  he 
smoked  his  cigar  out  on  Green — for  smoking  in  Great  Hall 
was  at  that  date  deemed  a  kind  of  sacrilege — and  have 
talk  with  him  of  his  own  schooldays.  I  can  remember 
hearing  him  describe  the  "  scraunch,"  which  he  declared 
he  still  felt,  when  his  nose  gave  way  in  the  fight  with 
George  Stovin  Venables  in  Penny's  House  in  Wilderness 
Row.  His  pockets  were  generally  full  of  coin,  which  he 
distributed  liberally  to  any  small  boys  who,  he  thought, 
could  do  with  it,  and  I  doubt  if  he  always  reserved  enough 
for  his  cab  fare  home. 

One  visit  of  his  to  Charterhouse  deserves  to  be  recorded. 
I  give  the  story  on  the  authority  of  the  Rev.  John  William 
Irvine,  who  told  it  to  me.  Irvine  was  in  Gownboys 
and  "  knew  Thackeray  at  home."  When  the  Newcomes 
was  running  through  its  later  numbers,  Thackeray  one  day 
appeared  at  Gownboy  door  and  asked  for  Irvine,  and  then, 
taking  him  by  the  arm,  said,  "  John,  I  am  going  to  tell  you 
a  great  secret.  Colonel  Newcome  is  going  to  be  a  Codd." 
And  he  therewith  asked  to  be  taken  to  a  Codd's  rooms.  It 
was  not,  strictly  speaking,  allowed  to  us  to  visit  a  Codd's 
rooms,  but  it  was  often  done  and  where  the  Codd  was  a 
trustworthy  person  no  objection  was  made.  And  Irvine 
knew  one,  Captain  Light,  a  blind  pensioner,  whom  I  well 
remember  as  being  always  led  into  Chapel  on  Sundays  by 
his  daughter.  To  his  room  *  Irvine  took  Thackeray,  and 
they  had  tea  there  while  Thackeray,  sitting  very  silent, 
said  Irvine,  listened  to  the  talk  and  heard  Chapel  bell  go 
for  evening  Chapel.  It  was  then,  I  think,  that  the  beautiful 
"  Adsum  "  incident,  which  few  men,  Carthusian  or  non- 
Carthusian,  care  to  read  with  any  one  else  sitting  in  the 
room,  took  shape  in  Thackeray's  mind. 

And  I  do  not  know  that  I  can  better  end  this  chapter 
of  desultory  memories  of  Charterhouse  School  life  in  a 
bygone  day,  than  by  merely  quoting  in  full  length  the 

*  By  the  aid  of  an  old  Charterhouse  servant,  Robert  Wright, 
who  was  House  Butler  at  the  time,  I  have  been  able  to  identify 
the  room  as  No.  70  in  XVI  Staircase,  Preacher's  Court. 


304  AFTERMATH 

passage   from   the   Newcomes  which   describes   Founder's 
Day  as  he  and  we  knew  it. 

"  Mention  has  been  made  once  or  twice  in  the  course 
of  this  history  of  the  Greyfriars  School — where  the  Colonel 
and  Clive  and  I  had  been  brought  up — an  ancient  founda- 
tion of  the  time  of  James  I,  still  subsisting  in  the  heart  of 
London  City.  The  death-day  of  the  Founder  of  the  place 
is  still  kept  solemnly  by  Cistercians.  In  their  Chapel, 
where  assemble  the  boys  of  the  School,  and  the  fourscore 
old  men  of  the  Hospital,  the  Founder's  Tomb  stands,  a 
huge  edifice,  emblasoned  with  heraldic  decorations  and 
clumsy  carved  allegories.  There  is  an  old  hall,  a  beautiful 
specimen  of  the  architecture  of  James'  time  ;  an  old  hall  ? 
many  old  halls  ;  old  staircases,  old  passages,  old  chambers, 
decorated  with  old  portraits,  walking  in  the  midst  of  which, 
we  walk  as  it  were  in  the  early  seventeenth  century.  To 
others  than  Cistercians,  Greyfriars  is  a  dreary  place  possibly. 
Nevertheless,  the  pupils  educated  there  love  to  revisit  it ; 
and  the  oldest  of  us  grow  young  again  for  an  hour  or  two 
as  we  come  back  into  those  scenes  of  childhood. 

"  The  custom  of  the  School  is  that  on  the  12th  of 
December,  the  Founder's  Day,  the  head  Gownboy  shall 
recite  a  Latin  oration,  in  praise  Fundatoris  Nostri,  and  upon 
other  subjects ;  and  a  goodly  company  of  old  Cistercians 
is  generally  brought  together  to  attend  this  oration :  after 
which  we  go  to  Chapel  and  hear  a  sermon ;  after  which 
we  adjourn  to  a  great  dinner,  where  old  Condisciples  meet, 
old  toasts  are  given,  and  speeches  are  made.  Before 
marching  from  the  oration  hall  to  Chapel,  the  stewards 
of  the  day's  dinner,  according  to  old-fashioned  rite,  have 
wands  put  into  their  hands,  walk  to  church  at  the  head 
of  the  procession,  and  sit  there  in  places  of  honour.  The 
boys  are  already  in  their  seats  with  smug  fresh  faces 
and  shining  white  collars  ;  the  old  black-gowned  pensioners 
are  on  their  benches  ;  the  Chapel  is  lighted,  and  Founder's 
Tomb,  with  its  grotesque  carvings,  monsters,  heraldries, 
darkles  and  shines  with  the  most  wonderful  shadows  and 
lights.  There  he  lies,  Fundator  Noster,  in  his  ruff  and  gown, 
awaiting  the  Great  Examination  Day.  We  oldsters, 
be  we  never  so  old,  become  boys  again  as  we  look  at  that 
familiar  old  tomb  and  think  how  the  seats  are  altered  since 


FUNDATOB   NOSTER. 


FOUNDER'S  TOMB  (DETAIL).     1615. 


FOUNDER'S   DAY  305 

we  were  here,  and  how  the  Doctor — not  the  present  Doctor, 
but  the  Doctor  of  our  time — used  to  sit  yonder,  and  his 
awful  eye  used  to  frighten  us  shuddering  boys  on  whom 
it  lighted  ;  and  how  the  boy  next  us  would  kick  our  shins 
during  service  time,  and  how  the  monitor  would  cane 
us  afterwards  because  our  shins  were  kicked.  Yonder  sit 
forty  cherry-cheeked  boys  thinking  about  home  and 
holidays  to-morrow.  Yonder  sit  some  threescore  old 
gentlemen  pensioners  of  the  Hospital,  listening  to  the 
prayers  and  the  psalms.  You  hear  them  coughing  feebly 
in  the  twilight — the  old  reverend  black  gowns.  Is 
Codd  Ajax  alive,  you  wonder  ? — the  Cistercian  lads  called 
these  old  gentlemen  Codds,  I  know  not  wherefore — I 
know  not  wherefore — but  is  old  Codd  Ajax  alive,  I  wonder  ? 
or  Codd  Soldier  ?  or  kind  old  Codd  Gentleman  ?  or  has 
the  grave  closed  over  them  ?  A  plenty  of  candles  lights 
up  this  Chapel  and  this  scene  of  youth  and  age  and  early 
memories  and  pompous  death.  How  solemn  the  well- 
remembered  prayers  are,  here  uttered  again  in  the  place 
where  in  childhood  we  used  to  hear  them !  How  beautiful 
and  decorous  the  rite ;  how  noble  the  ancient  words  of 
the  supplications  which  the  priest  utters  and  to  which 
generations  of  fresh  children  and  troops  of  bygone  seniors 
have  cried  Amen  under  these  arches !  The  service 
for  Founder's  Day  is  a  special  one ;  one  of  the  psalms 
selected  being  the  thirty-seventh,  and  we  hear : — 

"  '  23.  The  steps  of  a  good  man  are  ordered  by  the 
Lord,  and  he  delighteth  in  his  way. 

"  '  24.  Though  he  fall,  he  shall  not  be  utterly  cast 
down :  for  the  Lord  upholdeth  him  with  His  hand. 

'  25.  I  have  been  young,  and  now  am  old ;  yet 
have  I  not  seen  the  righteous  forsaken,  nor  his  seed 
begging  their  bread.' 

"As  we  came  to  this  verse,  I  chanced  to  look  up 
from  my  book  towards  the  swarm  of  black-coated 
pensioners  ;  and  amongst  them — amongst  them — sat 
Thomas  Newcome." 


APPENDIX   A 

THE   BUILDINGS 

CHARTERHOUSE  SQUARE 

AN  open  space  of  about  three  acres,  the  property  of  the 
governors  of  Charterhouse.  When  the  monastery  was  enclosed 
within  walls,  this  space  remained  in  use  as  a  churchyard, 
having  a  chapel  within  the  green  space.  It  was  known  as 
Charterhouse  Churcheyarde,  later  Charterhouse  Yard  or 
Square.  It  afterwards  became  a  fashionable  place  of  residence, 
being  surrounded  by  good  houses.  Queen  Catherine  Parr 
lived  here  with  her  second  husband  Henry  Nevill,  Lord  Latimer, 
before  her  marriage  with  Henry  VIII.*  Sir  Arthur  Darcy,  Sir 
Mannaduke  Constable,  the  Earl  of  Angus,  Sir  William  Parr, 
Sir  Christopher  Wray,  the  Marchioness  of  Dorset,  Lord  Charles 
Howard  of  Effingham  (son  of  the  Admiral),  Lord  Winchelsea, 
Lord  Grey,  John  Lelande,  and  others  from  time  to  time  had 
their  homes  here.  The  French  and  Venetian  ambassadors  had 
houses  in  the  square  in  Henry  VIII's,  Edward  VI's,  Mary's, 
and  Elizabeth's  reigns.  Jean  de  Dinteville,  who  appears  in 
Holbein's  Ambassadors,  lived  here  in  1533,  and  his  successor, 
Charles  Solier,  Sieur  de  Morette  (also  painted  by  Holbein),  in 
1534.  De  la  Motte  Fenelon  was  here  in  1570.  Lord  North 
built  a  mansion  (as  well  as  that  which  became  Howard  House) 
in  the  north-east  corner  of  the  square.  This  afterwards  passed 
to  the  Duke  of  Rutland,  whose  name  still  survives  there  in 
Rutland  Place,  the  site  of  the  house.  Sir  William  Davenant 
lived  in  Rutland  House,  and  in  Nov.,  1656,  by  special  license 
from  Cromwell,  stage  plays  (rudimentary  opera)  were  given 
here.  The  Siege  of  Rhodes  was  acted,  Mrs.  Coleman  taking  the 
leading  woman's  part.  In  1743  (George  II)  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment gave  the  control  of  the  square  to  a  body  of  trustees,  the 

*   Lord  Latimer's  house  seems  to  have  stood  on  the  site  now 
occupied  approximately  by  Nos.  10,  11. 

307 


308  APPENDIX    A 

freehold  remaining  the  property  of  the  Governors  of  Charter- 
house. 

In  about  1588  one  Syncleer,  caretaker  of  Philip  Arundel's 
tennis  court  in  Howard  House,  set  up  a  bowling  green  in  the 
west  side  of  the  square,  to  the  great  annoyance  of  the  residents. 
It  attracted  bad  characters,  who  on  one  occasion  pillaged  the 
home  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  Sir  Christopher  Wray,  in  the 
square. 

Thackeray  at  one  period  of  his  schooldays  lodged  with  a 
Mrs.  Boyes  in  the  square,  at  No.  9.  John  Leech's  schoolhouse 
was  No.  14. 

CHARTERHOUSE 

1.  THE  GATEHOUSE. — On  the  site  of  the  Monastery  Gate- 
house, which  was  a  simple  arch  with  a  timbered  storey  and 
gable  above.     It  was  rebuilt  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  was 
then  both  longer  and  deeper  than  now.     Repaired  in  1613. 
Again   in   the   eighteenth   century.     The   side-door  added   in 
1835.     The  arch  and  the  table  supported  by  lions  belong  to 
the  Norfolk  period,  and  the  oak  gate  probably  belongs  to  the 
last  days  of  the  Monastery.     There  is  a  tradition  that  the  gates 
once  hung  in  the  brick  arch  opposite  the  entrance,  which  they 
exactly  fit.      The  actual  oak  gate  was  once  deeper  by  some 
two  feet,  which  were  removed  as  the  soil  was  raised. 

2.  ENTRANCE  COURT. — Looking  from  the  Porter's  Lodge 
the  brick  arch  on  the  left  is  probably  the  work  of  William 
Tynbygh,    Prior    1499-1529.     On   the   right   is   the   front   of 
Howard  House  (North  and  Norfolk,  1545-1572).     The  upper 
floor  is  occupied  by  "  the  Long  Gallery  "  (see  p.  136).     At  the 
juncture  of  the  red  brick  of  the  Registrar's  House  with  the 
stonework  is  to  be  seen  the  east  wall  of  the  external  staircase 
down  which  Secretary  Barker  led  Ridolfi  (see  p.  137). 

3.  THE  MASTER'S  COURT. — The  three  sides  of  the  Court,  now 
the  Registrar's  (west)  and  Master's  Houses  (east),  belong  to 
Howard  House.     Opposite  to  the  visitor  is  the  Great  Hall. 
The  Court  occupies  approximately  the  site  of  the  little  cloister 
with  its  guest  houses  as  it  was  placed  in  the  later  monastic  days, 
having  apparently  been  pushed  out  towards  the  south  from  its 
earlier   position.     The   beautiful   old   stonework   is   concealed 
beneath  a  facing  of  modern  buff  brick.     The  door  at  the  north- 
east corner  leading  to  Chapel  dates  from  1841,  up  to  which 
time  a  door  and  raised  steps  beneath  the  great  staircase  window 
gave  access  to  that  portion  of  the  buildings. 

4.  CHAPEL  COURT. — The  lobby,  which  perhaps  represents 
the  site  of  the  Priory  quarters  in  the  later  Monastery,  at  the 


APPENDIX    A  309 

north-east  corner  of  Master's  Court  has  a  door  to  the  right 
which  leads  to  Chapel  Court,  now  the  yard  of  the  Master's 
House.  A  locked  door  on  the  left  in  the  Court  leads  to  a 
passage  in  which  are  seen  the  buttresses  of  the  monastic  church, 
together  with  a  doorway,  now  walled  up,  which  was  the  entrance 
door  of  the  lay  brothers,  who  passed  from  their  quarters  in 
Washhouse  Court  through  a  "  slype  "  (passage)  across  what  is 
now  the  Master's  dining-room,  and  across  the  Chapel  Court 
(see  later  Master's  Lodge).  The  entrance  for  the  monks  was 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Chapel,  opening  out  of  the  Great 
Cloister. 

5.  CHAPEL  CLOISTER  (so  called). — The  six  glazed  arches 
looking  out  on  Chapel  Court  were  built  in  1613,  but  the  two 
central  arches  were  not  glazed  and  enclosed  till  about  1842. 
In  the  cloister  are  memorial  tablets  to  Thackeray  and  Leech, 
Sir  Henry  Havelock,  John  Wesley,  Roger  Williams  (founder  of 
Rhode   Island    Colony),  John   Hullah   and   other   memorable 
Carthusians.     Richard  J.  S,  Stevens  (died  1837),  once  organist, 
the  author  of  well-known  English  glees,  is  buried  here.     On  the 
left  a  door  leads  to  Brooke  Hall,  once  the  officials'  common 
room,  which  takes  its  name  from  Robert  Brooke,  headmaster 
1628.     He  was  expelled  by  Parliament  in  1643  for  his  Royalist 
tendencies,  and  after  the  Restoration  was  allowed  to  return  to 
free  quarters  here. 

6.  THE    CHAPEL. — The   Ante-Chapel    has   the   date    1512, 
showing  that  it  belongs  to  the  Priorate  of  William  Tynbygh. 
The  original  monks'  church  is  confined  to  the  present  south 
aisle,  opening  from  the  Ante-Chapel.     The  lower  portions  of 
the  south  and  east  walls  behind  the  wainscot  are  the  original 
church,  founded  in  1349,  and  adopted  as  the  Carthusian  Church 
in  1371.     In  the  wall  to  the  right  of  the  communion  table  is  a 
movable   panel   which   covers   an   aumbry   belonging   to   the 
original  church,  which  followed  the  plan  of  nearly  all  Carthusian 
churches,  being  divided  by  a  screen  into  two  portions  for  the 
fathers  or  monks,  twenty-four  in  number,  and  for  the  twelve 
lay  brothers.     This  screen  was  placed  at  about  the  position  of 
the  preacher's  seat,  the  entrance  for  the  lay  brothers  being  still 
visible  in  the  external  wall  of  the  church.     According  to  the 
Carthusian   custom,   the  fathers   and  the   lay  brothers   were 
separated,  both  in  church  and  in  the  refectories. 

The  tomb  of  Sir  Walter  Manny,  the  founder  of  the  monastery 
(see  p.  19),  was,  as  we  learn  from  a  manuscript  in  the  Record 
Office,  at  the  foot  of  the  step  of  the  high  altar.* 

"  The  Chapter-house  was  to  the  east  of  the  church.  The 
sacristy  to  the  north  (on  the  site  of  the  present  north  aisle).  We 
read  also  of  a  chapel  of  St.  Anne,  built  1405,  at  the  west  end,  so  that 


310  APPENDIX   A 

The  open  arches  resting  on  columns  on  the  north  of  the 
monastic  church  belong  to  the  date  of  Button's  executors,  who 
removed  the  wall  and  erected  these  arches  and  built  also  the 
north  aisle,  or  bay,  for  the  reception  of  the  Founder's  Tomb, 
finished  in  1615.  This  aisle  was  originally  lighted  only  from 
the  north,  the  east  window  being  inserted  in  1841.  Nicholas 
Stone  was  responsible  for  the  "  pictures  " — i.e.  the  coloured 
sculpture ;  while  Bernard  Jansen,  son  of  Nicholas  Jansen  of 
Southwark,  and  probably  brother  of  that  Geraert  Jansen  who 
is  thought  to  have  made  Shakespeare's  bust  at  Stratford,  did 
the  architectural  details.  The  tomb  is  minutely  described  in 
the  bill  preserved  in  the  Muniment  Room.  We  learn  from  it 
that  the  figures  in  the  upper  part  are  the  three  Virtues  with 
two  children's  figures  typifying  Labour  and  Rest.*  The  bas- 
relief  is  not  specifically  explained,  but  plainly  it  represents  the 
Brothers  assembled  in  their  chapel.  The  two  "  captains  "  as 
they  are  described  (not  Law  and  Sutton,  the  executors,  as  has 
been  asserted),  who  support  the  inscription,  are  an  allusion  to 
Sutton's  profession.  The  founder  lies  beneath,  a  full-length 
effigy. 

The  iron  grille  is  of  much  earlier  date,  and  may  possibly 
have  belonged  to  one  of  the  many  tombs  which  had  existed  in 
the  chapel  or  cloister.  The  Founder's  body  still  lies  in  the 
vault  below. 

The  half-length  figure  of  John  Law,  Sutton's  executor  (died 
1614),  now  placed  very  high  up  on  the  west  wall  of  the  south 
aisle,  is  also  by  Nicholas  Stone. 

In  the  pavement  near  the  Founder's  Tomb  is  the  grave- 
stone of  Thomas  Walker,  Headmaster  1G79-1728,  who  had 
Addison,  Steele,  and  Wesley  for  his  pupils. 

The  pulpit,  joint  work  of  Francis  Blunt,  Thomas  Herring, 
and  Jeremy  Wincle,  is  of  1G13.  James  Ryder  (1613)  carved 
twenty-four  of  the  wooden  pewheads  (some  modern  additions 
are  easy  to  detect).  The  communion  table  and  the  organ 
screen  are  also  of  the  date  of  Sutton's  executors.  But  the 
gallery  (1841)  of  the  northern  bay  (1824),  the  screen  (1841), 
and  doors  between  the  Ante-Chapel  and  Chapel,  and  the 

women  could  hear  Masses  there  without  entering  the  monastery 
(Record  Office  MS.).  Other  chapels  dedicated  to  the  Virgin  and 
All  Saints,  the  Holy  Trinity,  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  St.  Mary 
Magdalene,  St.  John  Evangelist,  St.  Agnes,  St.  John  Baptist, 
St.  Jerome  and  St.  Bernard,  St.  Michael,  were  built  around  the 
church  in  the  late  fourteenth  century  and  fifteenth  century,  it  being 
the  rule  for  every  father  to  celebrate  Mass  daily. 

*  Two  figures  are  not  accounted  for.  They  are  thought  to 
symbolise  Plenty  and  Want,  or  Riches  and  Poverty,  the  left-hand 
figure  holding  a  cornucopia,  while  the  right-hand  figure  bears  two 
birds,  presumably  the  pair  of  turtle  doves,  the  offering  of  the  poor. 


APPENDIX   A  311 

panelling  of  the  south  aisle  are  modern,  except  the  portion  of 
panel  close  to  the  entrance. 

The  tombs  in  the  chapel  were  raised  to  their  present 
position  by  Edward  Blore  (1841).  They  include  the  monument 
of  Matthew  Raine,  Master  (died  1811),  by  Flaxman ;  of  Lord 
Chief  Justice  Ellenborough  (died  1818),  by  Chantrey ;  of 
Francis  Beaumont,  Master  1617-24,  and  of  others.  Near  the 
vestry  is  preserved  a  fragment  of  the  Tomb  of  Sir  Walter  de 
Manny  (died  1372),  found  some  years  ago  built  into  the  wall  of 
Howard  House.  The  organ  screen  stood  across  the  south  aisle 
till  1841  when  a  large  organ  by  Walker  required  more  space. 
When  the  school  was  in  London  the  Foundation  boys  (Gown- 
boys)  sat  in  the  seats  which  remain  in  front  of  the  Founder's 
Tomb.  Their  four  monitors  and  four  next  boys  of  the  house, 
sat  to  the  left  and  right  (looking  west)  of  the  column.  The 
day-boys  sat  in  the  seats  due  west  of  the  Founder's  Tomb. 
The  rest  of  the  school  occupied  the  northern  bay  (1824),  where 
their  seats  still  remain.  The  headmaster  sat  in  a  canopied  pew 
(now  removed)  to  the  left  of  the  communion  rails ;  the  usher 
in  a  similar  pew  on  the  right.  Above  the  Ante-Chapel  is  the 
Muniment  Room,  which  perhaps  formed  the  Stranger's  Gallery 
of  the  monastic  church,  being  then  accessible  from  the  spiral 
staircase  at  the  north-east  corner  of  the  "  Chapel  Cloister  "  (so 
called).  If  this  conjecture  is  sound  there  must  have  been  an 
opening  now  closed  in  the  east  wall  of  the  Muniment  Room  to 
give  a  view  of  the  High  Altar.  Above  the  Muniment  Room 
and  approached  by  the  same  spiral  staircase  is  a  large  chamber 
with  a  sixteenth  century  chimney  in  it,  used  evidently  as  a 
living-room.  All  these  three  stages  of  the  tower  are  of  the 
date  of  Prior  Tynbygh's  priorate,  1512.  In  the  Belfry  above 
hangs,  in  the  "  Lover  "  *  of  1613,  the  great  bell,  re-cast  in 
1631,  by  John  Bartlett,  from  the  earlier  monastery  bell  which 
had  been  "  solemnly  hallowed  with  chant  "  by  Dan  Richard 
Fleming,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  on  July  18,  1428. 

7.  THE  GREAT  STAIRCASE  seems,  by  Barker's  confession,  to 
have  been  new  here  in  1571,  and  may  therefore  be  accepted  as 
the  work  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk. 

8.  THE  TERRACE. — A  paved  walk,  resting  on  the  arcade 
built  with  it  by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  1565-71,  as  a  double 
"  ambulatory  "  to  his  tennis  court.     The  wall,  visible  from  the 
houses  on  the  left,  has  on  the  upper  portion  of  the  brickwork 
1571    (the    last   figure    conjecturally   restored).     The   Terrace 
overlooks    the   site   of   the   great   cloister   of  the  monastery, 

*  This  bell  still  tolls  the  curfew  at  8  p.m.  in  winter  and  9  p.m. 
in  summer.  The  number  of  strokes  corresponds  to  that  of  the  Brothers 
within  the  hospital. 


312  APPENDIX    A 

afterwards  the  Duke's  garden,  then  the  "  Upper  Green  "  or 
match-ground  of  the  school,  and  now  the  Merchant  Taylors' 
playground.  The  open  space  within  the  cloisters  was  about 
100  yards  square.  The  twenty-four  cells  (cottages)  were 
arranged  round  the  three  sides  and  part  also  of  the  south  side 
to  the  east  of  the  church.  In  the  centre  stood  the  conduit. 
The  block  of  buildings  on  the  north  and  beyond  stands  upon 
the  site  of  the  Monks'  Wilderness,  afterwards  the  "  Under 
Green"  of  the  school.  The  Great  School  ("Big  School") 
stood  on  the  north  side  of  the  present  open  space  where  the 
ground  rises  and  forms  "  Hill." 

9.  THE    OFFICERS'    LIBRARY   was   originally   part   of   the 
Great  Chamber  beyond,  and  was  not  separated  from  it  till 
1784,*  when  Daniel  Wray,  the  antiquarian,  a  Carthusian,  had 
bequeathed  his  collection  of  books  to  the  hospital.     At  the 
same  time  the  east  wall  was  moved  several  feet  into  the  lobby. 
The  portrait  of  Wray  over  the  mantelpiece  is  by  Nathaniel 
Dance.*     The  Chippendale  chairs  are  of  high  quality. 

10.  THE   GREAT   CHAMBER,    also   called   the    "  Governor's 
Room "   and   the   "  Tapestry   Room,"   was   almost   certainly 
added  by  North  or  Norfolk.     There  was  originally  no  west 
window,  and  the  room  at  that  end  was  lighted  from  the  ad- 
joining bay.     When,  between  1824-39,  the  new  houses  were 
built  at  the  end  of  the  bay,  the  lower  mullions  and  most  of  the 
lights  of  the  blocked-up  window  of  the  bay  were  used  again 
for  the  west  window. 

The  fireplace  belongs  to  the  Howard  House  period,  though 
it  cannot  certainly  be  said  under  which  owner ;  but  the  panels 
with  Sutton's  Arms  and  initials  are  a  later  insertion,  as  also  are 
the  Royal  Arms  with  C.R.  The  tapestries  (Flemish)  were 
probably  placed  here  by  Norfolk.  The  fine  ceiling  of  Norfolk's 
date  was  admirably  repaired  under  Archdeacon  Hale,  1841. 

In  this  room  James  I  in  May,  1903,  created  one  hundred  and 
thirty-three  knights.  Up  to  the  year  1872,  the  annual  Latin 
oration  was  delivered  here  by  the  head  Gownboy. 

11.  In  the  passage  beyond  is  the  DUCHESS'  WITHDRAWING 
ROOM,  more  probably  the  Musicians'  Room.     This,  since  1613, 
has  been  the  private  room  of  the  organist.     It  contains  an 
interesting  collection  of  prints  and  drawings  connected  with 
Charterhouse.     It  was  in  this  room  that  John  Wesley  must 
have  paid  the  visits  to  Dr.  Pepusch  recorded  in  his  diary.     It 
has  a  door  opening  to  the  musicians'  gallery. 

12.  Beyond  is  the  DUKE'S  PRIVIE  CHAMBER,  now  completely 
gutted,    and   retaining   no   trace   of  antiquity.     It  was  here, 

*  Smythe  attributes  it  to  Powell  after  Dance. 


APPENDIX   A  813 

however,  that  "  under  the  matte  hard  by  the  windowe's  syde  in 
the  Entrye  towards  my  Lord's  Bedchamber  where  the  Mappe 
of  England  doth  hang  whereof  I  made  my  Lord  Pryvie  "  (see 
Higford's  Confession  in  Burghley's  State  Papers),  the  letter 
from  the  "  Quene  of  Scots  "  was  found. 

The  staircase  on  the  left  of  the  door  of  this  room  is  the  only 
remaining  external  staircase  (there  were  once  seven)  of  Howard 
House. 

13.  THE  GREAT  HALL. — The  lower  portion  of  this  hall 
belongs  to  the  date  of  Prior  Tynbygh's  (1499-1529)  rebuilding. 
As  far  up  as  to  a  point  about  2  feet  above  the  traceried  windows 
the  work  is  of  the  last  years  of  the  monastery.  It  is  safe  to 
conclude  that  the  roof  was  raised  by  North  or  (more  probably 
Norfolk,  who  added  the  upper  tier  of  square-headed  windows. 
The  position  of  the  adapted  hammer  beams,  which  are  not 
placed  symmetrically  with  regard  to  the  lower  windows, 
suggests  that  a  makeshift  was  adopted.  The  Duke  of  Norfolk 
probably  threw  out  the  oriel  bay  (which  was  taken  down  and 
shortened  in  the  nineteenth  century).  In  the  soffit  of  the 
inside  of  the  oriel  arch,  invisible  save  by  the  aid  of  a  ladder,  is 
the  motto  "  Think  and  Thank."  Norfolk  inserted  the  great 
screen  of  the  singing  gallery  which  has  upon  the  shield  T.N. 
1571,  showing  that  it  belongs  to  the  time  when  Norfolk  had 
returned  to  Howard  House  after  his  first  imprisonment  in  the 
Tower.  The  coved  gangway  running  from  east  to  west,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  writer,  is  a  few  years  earlier  than  the  screen,  as 
may  be  judged  from  the  very  clumsy  plan  by  which  the  singing 
gallery  is  united  to  it,  and  by  the  fact  that  the  frieze  and  two 
corbels  on  the  right  of  the  gallery  have  been  shifted  to  the 
left  so  that  the  corbels  no  longer  rest  upon  the  capitals  below, 
a  method  which  could  never  have  been  adopted  in  an  original 
design.  The  upper  portions  of  the  fireplace,  the  Arms  of 
Sutton,  and  the  cannon  are  the  work  of  Jeremy  Wincle,  1613. 
The  lower  part  of  the  fireplace  is,  in  the  writer's  opinion,  of 
somewhat  earlier  date.*  The  ceiling  seems  to  be  of  the  date  of 
the  raising  of  the  roof,  as  an  examination  of  the  rafters  above 
shows  that  they  would  have  been  unsightly  and  unpresentable. 
But  the  ribs  and  panels  were  added  to  the  plain  ceiling  by 
Blore  (1841).  The  old  stone  paving  of  the  Hall  was  changed  to 
the  present  wood  floor  at  the  same  time.  The  panelling  of  the 
Hall  is  perhaps  of  the  date  of  Prior  Tynbygh.  The  Great  Hall 
was  originally  separated  completely  f  from  the  Small  Hall 

*  The  heraldic  animal  in  the  centre,  often  called  a  salamander, 
is  more  probably  a  Tudor  griffin. 

t  This  is  the  writer's  opinion,  which  contradicts  the  view  which 
has  gained  ground  only  in  the  last  forty  years  that  the  Great  Hall 
was  the  Guests'  Refectory. 


314  APPENDIX    A 

(Brothers'  Library)  adjoining.  But  Sutton's  executors  cut  the 
two  apertures  which  are  now  seen,  throwing  the  two  rooms 
together.  These  apertures  were  again  closed  by  doors  in 
Archdeacon  Bale's  time.  The  Brothers  dine  daily  in  the 
Great  Hall. 

14.  THE  BROTHERS'  LIBRARY  presents  a  good  many  diffi- 
culties.    It  appears  to  occupy  the  site  of  the  Prior's  cell,  and 
the  Freytor  (Refectory)  of  the  monastery  as  indicated  in  the 
plan  of  1431.     Subsequently,  under  Prior  Tynbygh,  the  Priors' 
room  seems  to  have  been  moved  to  a  point  nearer  to  the  chapel, 
probably  where  the  open  lobby  is  now  seen,  and  it  is  probable, 
but  can  only  be  stated  with  reserve,  that  the  Lay  Brothers' 
Refectory    occupied     this    position,    the    Monks'    Refectory, 
on  a  larger  scale,  being  moved  to  the  position  of  the  Great 
Hall.      The    portion,    however,  nearest   to   the    east,  from  a 
mark  cut  on  the  north  wall  near  the  door  at  the  north-east 
corner  to  the  east  wall,  was  originally  part  of  the  cloister 
ambulatory,  and  was  included  in  the  room  by  North  or  Norfolk. 
In  any  case  the  room  must  have  been  remodelled  when  the 
great  chamber  above  was  added.     The  door  north-east  and  the 
fireplace  are  of  the  date  1613.     Three  of  the  stools  are  perhaps 
of  late  monastic  date,  and  two  of  the  tables  are  perhaps  two 
out  of  the  three  which,  in  Dale's  report  (see  Appendix  B)  are 
said  to  have  been  left  in  the  Refectory.     The  room  was  used 
afterwards  as  Gownboy  Dining  Hall. 

Underneath  the  Library,  and  extending  about  as  far  east- 
wards as  the  mark  aforesaid,  is  a  cellar  (not  shown)  with  some 
ancient  features  of  monastic  date. 

15.  The   north-east   door   leads   into   the    covered    arcade 
known  as  the  cloisters,  built  by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  in  the  site 
of  the  west  ambulatory  of  the  GREAT  CLOISTER,  of  which  the 
lower  part  of  the  inner  wall  remains.     A  door  of  one  of  the 
cottages  (cells),  with  its  hatch  for  the  reception  of  the  food, 
remains,  and  appears  to  be  Cell  B  (in  the  monastery  plan), 
founded   in  1371  by  Sir  William  Walworth  (see  pp.  57,  74). 
Another  hatch,  50  feet  to  the  north,  is  apparently  that  of 
Cell  C,  founded  by  Adam  Fraunceys.     On  the  east  side  of  the 
playground,  under  a  plane  tree,  is  to  be  seen  the  door  of  another 
cell  (apparently  Cell  T,  founded  by  Sir  William  Ufford),  now 
half  buried  behind  a  bank  and  steps.     Another  door  in  good 
preservation,  and  with  some  of  the  internal  portion  of  the  cell 
remaining,   was  visible   up  to   1872,   but  disappeared   at  the 
building  of  Merchant  Taylors'  Hall  above  it. 

16.  THE    LAVENDRY  COURT  or  WASHHOUSE  COURT  (also 
once  called  Poplar  Tree  Court).     The  west  wing  of  this  court 
was  formerly   prolonged   towards   the   north   some   way   into 


APPENDIX   A  815 

Pensioners'  Court  (see  plan  of  1755).  Washhouse  Court  is 
probably  part  of  Tynbygh's  remodelling  of  this  part  of  the 
monastery,  and  was  built  to  accommodate  the  lay  brothers, 
whose  dormitories  were  on  the  upper  floor,  while  their 
"  Obediences  " — i.e.  serving  offices,  were  below.  We  read  of 
a  lavendry  or  washhouse  (the  washhouse  of  the  earlier  monastery 
was  to  the  east  of  the  Chapter-house,  opening  out  of  the  Great 
Cloister),  a  long  workhouse  *  (west  wing),  a  brewhouse  (with  a 
water  supply  from  the  great  conduit),  a  kitchen,  a  bakehouse, 
and  a  fish  hall.  The  court  has  been  often  repaired,  but  a  good 
deal  of  old  work  remains.  The  porch  leading  into  the  kitchen 
on  the  north-east  is,  however,  modern,  of  the  mastership  of 
Dr.  Currey.  The  passage  leading  from  the  Preacher's  Court 
into  Washhouse  Court  is  that  spoken  of  in  Barker's  Confession 
(see  p.  137).  The  passage  into  the  Master's  Court  has  on  the 
north  a  portion  of  the  MONKS'  KITCHEN,  perhaps  built  by 
Tynbygh,  and  adapted  by  North,  but  all  the  rest  of  the  kitchen 
has  been  modernised.  The  name  by  which  it  is  known,  "  The 
Prior's  Kitchen,"  is,  of  course,  fanciful,  there  being  no  such 
distinction  between  Prior  and  Monks  in  a  Carthusian  monastery. 
On  the  outer  wall  of  the  west  wing,  in  Preacher's  Court,  is 
to  be  seen  a  bricked-up  low  archway  which,  in  an  old  plan  of 
1614,  corresponds  with  a  "  Slype  "  from  the  court.  It  has  been 
suggested  by  the  Preacher  f  that  this  arch  was  formerly  an  open 
hatch  at  which  the  broken  meats  from  the  kitchen  were  dis- 
tributed to  the  poor.  Above  it  is  a  cross,  while  still  higher  to 
the  left  are  the  letters  I.H.  (probably  a  portion  of  I.H.S.  rather 
than  John  Houghton),  and  there  are  three  crosses  in  all. 

17.  THE  MASTER'S  LODGE  occupies  the  east  wing  and  half 
the  south  wing  of  the  mansion  of  Howard  House.  The  lower 
rooms  of  the  house,  which  include  the  dining-room  and  study, 
were,  before  Archdeacon  Hale's  mastership,  not  used  as 
dwelling-rooms,  but  were  the  offices  of  the  Houses,  according 
to  the  custom  by  which  the  upper  rooms  only — the  Piano 
Nobile — of  a  Renaissance  mansion  were  used  by  the  family. 
Across  what  is  now  the  Dining  Room  ran  a  slype  or  passage  by 
which,  in  monastic  days,  the  lay  brothers  had  passed  from 
Washhouse  Court  to  their  entrance  to  the  Chapel.  The  Great 
Staircase  is  modern,  added  by  Archdeacon  Hale.  It  leads  to 
the  landing  on  the  first  floor  which  once  formed  the  east 
extremity  of  the  "  Long  Gallery,"  which  is  now  divided  off  by 
partitions  into  the  rooms  of  the  Master's  and  Registrar's 

*  This  room,  partitioned,  is  still  used  for  its  original  purpose, 
but  the  brewhouse,  the  bakehouse,  and  the  fish  hall  are  no  longer 
so  described. 

t  The  Rev.  H.  V.  Le  Bas,  to  whom  the  writer  owes  much. 


316  APPENDIX    A 

houses.  For  the  part  which  this  Long  Gallery  played  in  the 
history  of  Elizabeth's  day  the  reader  is  referred  to  Chapter 
XIII.  The  east  wing  of  the  first  floor  is  occupied  by  the  small 
Drawing  Room,  the  large  Drawing  Room,  and  "the  Panelled 
Room."  These  rooms  probably  were  the  sleeping  apartments 
used  by  Elizabeth  and  James  I  at  their  visits  to  Charterhouse. 
The  large  Drawing  Room  has  a  fine  fireplace,  probably  of 
Norfolk's  period.  The  centre  panel  is  not  original,  and  the 
portrait  of  Sutton  which  it  contains — a  late  copy  from  the 
portrait  in  the  Great  Hall — was  formerly  over  the  fireplace  of 
the  small  Drawing  Room,  where  the  portrait  of  Daniel  Wray 
is  now  seen. 

There  is  a  tradition  that  some  of  the  pictures  now  in  the 
Master's  Lodge  were  left  here  by  Anne,  the  wife  of  James 
Duke  of  Monmouth,  and  they  have  been  commonly  called  the 
Monmouth  pictures.  It  is,  of  course,  obvious  that  that  belief,  if 
sound,  could  apply  at  most  to  five  or  six  of  the  portraits,  since 
most  of  the  others  cannot  be  brought  into  line  with  the  tradition, 
either  by  reason  of  unfitness  of  date  or  of  political  party.  The 
fact  that  every  portrait  in  the  Lodge,  except  that  of  Daniel 
Wray  and  Matthew  Raine,  is  of  a  Governor  of  Charterhouse, 
also  induces  reserve.  The  pictures,  though  interesting,  are, 
with  one  or  two  exceptions,  especially  Kneller's  portrait  of 
Burnet,  not  of  the  very  first  order,  and  one  or  two  have  suffered 
badly  at  the  hands  of  the  restorer.  The  list  of  portraits  is  as 
follows  : — 

Thomas  Sutton,  an  eighteenth  century  version  of  the 
portrait  (painted  in  1657)  in  Great  Hall. 

Thomas  Sutton,  an  oval  in  the  chief  fireplace.  A  repro- 
duction from  the  portrait  in  the  Hall. 

King  Charles  II  (c.  1660). 

Gilbert  Sheldon  (Governor,  1661),  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury. 

George  Morley  (c.  1663),  Bishop  of  Winchester. 

Humphrey  Henchman  (c.  1667),  Bishop  of  London. 

Benjamin  Laney  (c.  1668),  Bishop  of  Ely. 

William  Craven,  Earl  of  Craven  (c.  1668). 

George  Villiers,  second  Duke  of  Buckingham  (c.  1669). 

Antony  Astley  Cooper,  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  (c.  1672), 
attributed  to  Greenfield. 

James  Scott,  Duke  of  Monmouth  (c.  1679),  attributed  to 
Sir  Peter  Lely. 

Thomas  Burnet,  Master  (c.  1685),  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller. 
Signed  1694. 

John  Sheffield,  Duke  of  Buckinghamshire  (c.  1685). 

Charles  Talbot,  Duke  of  Shrewsbury  (c.  1689),  attributed  to 
Sir  Peter  Lely. 


APPENDIX   A  317 

John  Somers,  Earl  Somers  (c.  1694). 

William  Cowper,  first  Earl  Cowper,  Lord  Chancellor  (c.  1707). 

John  Robinson,  Bishop  of  London  (c.  1713),  by  Michael 
Dahl. 

John  King,  D.D.,  Master  (c.  1715). 

Edmund  Gibson,  Bishop  of  London  (c.  1723),  by  Richardson. 

Spencer  Compton,  Earl  of  Wilmington  (c.  1732). 

Daniel  Wray,  Benefactor,  1785,  by  Powell. 

Matthew  Raine,  Schoolmaster,  1790,  by  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence. 

Charles  Manners  Sutton,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (c.  1805). 
Copy  by  G.  R.  Ward  after  the  portrait  by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence 
at  Lambeth. 

Arthur  Duke  of  Wellington  (c.  1828),  by  G.  R.  Ward. 

William  Hale  Hale,  Archdeacon  of  London.  Master 
(c.  1840). 

18.  THE  PREACHER'S  COURT  is  occupied  by  the  rooms  of 
the  brothers  and  by  the  Preacher's  House.  Up  to  the  time  of 
Archdeacon  Hale,  the  brothers  occupied  the  old  monastery 
barns  and  outbuildings  which,  having  been  provided  with 
floors,  chimneys,  and  staircases,  had  for  200  years  done  service 
as  quarters.  The  buildings  stretched  diagonally  across  from 
north-east  to  south-west  of  the  Preacher's  Court.  The  two 
courts  which  we  now  see  were  built  between  1826-39.  The 
inner  court  is  called  Pensioners'  Court.  The  fishpond  of  the 
monastery  lay  where  the  north  wing  of  Pensioners'  Court  now 
stands,  extending  over  a  portion  also  of  the  old  Brothers' 
burial  ground.  The  Brothers  or  Pensioners  now  live  as  in  a 
college  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  on  staircases,  each  having  his 
separate  room  or  rooms.  On  the  left-hand  side  of  Preacher's 
Court,  Staircase  No.  16,  is  the  following  inscription  : — 

IN   THIS    ROOM   LIVED 

CAPTAIN   THOMAS   LIGHT 

WHOM   THACKERAY   VISITED 

WHEN    WRITING   THE   LAST 

CHAPTERS   OF   THE   NEWCOMES. 


APPENDIX   B 

DOCUMENTS   RELATING   TO  THE   MONASTERY 


Will  of  Sir  WALTER   LORD   OF  MANNEY,    Knight.     London, 
St.  Andrew's  Day,  1371.    [Nicolas.    Testamenta  Vetusta.] 

My  body  to  be  buried  at  God's  pleasure  but  if  it  may  be  in 
the  midst  of  the  Quire  of  the  Carthusians  called  Our  Lady  near 
West  Smithfield  in  the  suburbs  of  London  of  my  foundation 
but  without  any  great  pomp.  And  I  will  that  my  executors 
cause  20  masses  to  be  said  for  my  soul  and  that  every  poor 
person  coming  to  my  funeral  shall  have  a  penny  to  pray  for  me 
and  for  the  remission  of  my  sins.  •  To  Mary  my  sister  a  nun  X 
pounds  [Harleian  MS.  6148  omits  this.  Dugdale,  vol.  ii,  p.  150 
gives  it]. 

To  my  2  bastard  daughters  nuns  viz  to  Mailosel  and 
Malplesant  the  one  CC  franks  the  other  C  franks  to  Cishbert 
my  cousin  [Dugdale  omits]  to  Margaret  Mareschall  [Margaret 
daughter  of  Thomas  de  Brotherton  Earl  Marshal]  my  dear 
wife  my  plate  which  I  bought  of  Robert  Francis  :  also  a 
girdle  of  gold  and  a  hook  for  a  mantle  and  likewise  a 
garter  of  gold  [the  KC's  Garter]  with  all  my  girdles  knives 
all  my  beds  and  dossers  in  my  wardrobe  except  my  folding 
bed  paly  of  blue  and  red  *  which  I  bequeath  to  my  daughter 
of  Pembroke  [Anne  Plantagenet  f  wife  of  John  Hastings 
Earl  of  Pembroke]  and  I  will  also  that  my  said  wife  have  all 
the  goods  which  I  purchased  of  Lord  Segrave  and  the  Countess 
Marshal.  Also  I  will  that  a  tomb  of  alabaster  with  my  image 
as  a  Knight  and  my  arms  thereon  shall  be  made  for  me  like 
unto  that  of  Sir  John  Beauchamp  in  London.  I  will  that 
prayers  be  said  for  me  and  for  Alice  de  Henalt  J  Countess 
Marshal.  And  whereas  the  King  oweth  me  an  old  debt  of 
1000  pounds  by  bills  of  his  wardrobe  I  will  that  if  it  can  be 

*  The  arms  of  Manney. 

t  See  list  of  founders  of  cells  in  the  monastery,  p.  71. 
j  Alice  de  Henalt,  believed  to  be  Alys  de  Halys,  first  wife  of 
Thomas  Earl  of  Norfolk,  his  wife's  mother. 

318 


APPENDIX   B  319 

obtained  it  shall  be  given  to  the  Prior  and  Monks  of  the  Charter- 
house and  whereas  there  is  due  to  me  from  the  Prince  from  the 
time  he  has  been  Prince  of  Wales  the  sum  of  C  marks  per 
annum  for  my  salary  as  Governor  of  Hardelagh  [Harlech] 
Castle,  I  bequeath  one  half  of  these  to  the  Monks  and  Prior 
of  the  Charterhouse  before  mentioned  and  the  other  half  to 
the  executors  of  my  will.  To  my  wife  and  my  daughter  Pem- 
broke the  fifteen  m  florins  of  gold  and  five  "  vesseux  estutes 
pli  "  [sic.]  which  Duke  Albert  oweth  me  by  obligation.  To 
Sir  Guy  Bryan  *  Knight  my  best  chains  whom  I  also  appoint 
my  executor. 

II 

Abstract  of  the  Will  of  Michael  [de  Northburgh]  unworthy 
minister  of  the  Church  in  London.  May  23,  1361.  [R.  R. 
Sharpe,  Calendar  of  London  Wills.] 

A  copy  of  full  will  exists  in  Charterhouse  Muniment  Room. 
He  leaves  many  bequests.  Money  for  portions  to  poor  girls  : 
for  poor  householders  more  especially  for  bondsmen  nativis 
of  the  Bishop  of  London.  100£  to  maintain  poore  scholars 
in  Canon  and  Civil  law  at  Oxford  for  4  years  and  20£  to  the 
Master  to  Chamber  of  London  10£  and  a  similar  sum  for  the 
repair  of  roads  in  Essex.  To  Michael  Fre  his  books  on  civil 
law  and  his  magnum  opus  a  concordance  of  law  and  canons  : 
also  an  entire  suit  of  armour,  a  missal  without  music  a  small 
bible  :  3  silver  dishes,  salts,  a  Byker  called  "  Katherine  "  an 
amice,  cope  etc. 

To  Thomas,  brother  of  the  *aid  Michael,  to  each  of  his 
servants,  to  Richard  de  Ambraslee,  to  John  de  Cauntebrigg 
fishmonger  and  others  he  leaves  sums  of  money  and  household 
goods  :  and  to  his  successor  his  best  mitre  and  pontifical  ring. 
He  further  leaves  the  sum  of  2000£  for  the  foundation  of  a 
House  according  to  the  ritual  of  the  Carthusian  Order  in  a  place 
commonly  called  "  Neuchurche  hawe  "  where  there  is  a  church 
of  the  Annunciation  of  the  B.V  Mary  which  place  and  patronage 
he  acquired  from  Sir  Walter  de  Manny ;  and  he  leaves  to  the 
said  House  when  complete  the  divers  basins  f  for  use  at  the 
high  altar  a  silver  vessel  enamelled  for  Containing  the  Host : 
his  best  silver  stoup  (meliorem  stopam)  for  the  Holy  Water 
with  sprinkler,  silver  bell  etc  as  well  as  all  his  rents  and  tene- 
ments in  London. 

The  will,  with  a  fragment  of  seal  attached,  is  preserved  among 
the  Archives  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral. 

*  Guy  de  Brienne — buried  in  Tewkesbury  Abbey, 
t  These  seem  to  be  the  vessels  described  in  the  inventory  made 
at  the  Suppression.     See  Appendix  B,  iv. 


320  APPENDIX    B 

III 

Extracts  from  MS.  in  the  Record  Office,  Chartularies  of  Charter- 
house 61. 

[This  MS.,  compiled  apparently  by  a  Carthusian  Monk  soon 
after  1481  (the  last  date  recorded  in  the  MS.),  gives  a  complete 
account  of  the  foundation  of  the  monastery  and  a  list  of  bene- 
factions up  to  the  date  of  compilation.  It  evidently  belonged 
to  the  Archives  of  the  Monastery.  It  is  referred  to  hi  this  book 
as  M.S.M.I.  =  i.e.  MS.  Monachi  Ignoti.] 

"  He,  [Northburgh]  approached  the  aforesaid  Lord  Mawny 
being  minded  to  found  in  the  said  cemetery  of  New  Burial 
a  House  of  the  Carthusian  Order  earnestly  praying  him  that 
he  would  consent  to  have  him  as  an  associate  and  helper  for 
the  said  work.  At  length  they  agreed  that  the  Bishop  should 
give  Lord  Mawny  1000  marks  so  that  he  should  become  his 
associate  and  after  the  same  lord  the  first  founder  of  the  House 
and  his  sucessors  the  bishops  of  London  perpetual  patrons  of 
the  same  House  which  sum  he  paid  with  speed  to  the  said 
lord  :  and  they  thereon  made  indentures  of  which  one  written 
in  French  and  confirmed  with  the  seal  of  the  bishop  is  left 
with  us  [i.e.  Charterhouse]  the  effect  of  which  is  here  clearly 
set  forth  in  Latin. 

"  In  the  name  of  JESUS,  amen.  This  is  the  agreement 
made  between  the  Reverend  father  in  God  Dan  Michael  of 
Northbury  by  the  grace  of  God  Bishop  of  London  and  Sir  W. 
Mawny  Lord  of  Mawny  and  it  is  in  this  sort — that  the  said 
W  received  the  said  Lord  Bishop  as  his  first  associate  after 
himself  for  the  foundation  and  advowson  and  building  of  the 
Church  of  the  Annunciation  of  our  Lady  outside  London  beside 
Smithfield  which  was  begun  to  be  built  on  the  day  of  the 
Annunciation  of  our  Lady  in  the  year  of  grace  1349  according  to 
English  use  to  build  there  a  perpetual  Carthusian  Convent 
of  thirteen  priests  of  that  Order  if  it  can  well  be  done  and  if 
not  of  another  Order  according  as  they  may  agree  or  in  a  smaller 
number  to  remain  for  all  time  to  celebrate  and  say  daily  for 
their  two  selves  aforesaid  and  for  Dame  Margaret  Marchall 
lady  of  Mawny  wife  of  the  said  William  [WALTER]  and  for  their 
children  and  successors  of  this  blood  and  for  the  souls  of  all 
their  ancestors  of  whom  they  have  come  as  well  as  for  those 
who  belong  to  the  foresaid  Bishop,  and  for  all  parents  friends 
and  benefactors  of  both  and  for  those  living  and  dead  for 
whom  both  are  bound  to  pray  or  make  prayers  and  especially 
for  the  souls  of  all  whose  bodies  are  or  shall  be  buried  there. 

"  And  it  was  agreed  that  while  the  said  Michael  and  Walter 
are  alive  the  aforesaid  Walter  during  his  life  time  ought  to  be 


APPENDIX   B  321 

the  first  founder  patron  and  advocate  and  the  aforesaid  Michael 
the  Bishop  his  next  associate  as  aforesaid. 

****** 

'  And  after  the  death  of  the  said  Walter  the  said  Dan 
Michael  of  Northbury  ought  to  have  the  patronage  and  advow- 
son  for  all  time  and  also  that  neither  Margery  Mareschall  wife 
of  the  said  Walter  nor  their  children  nor  their  heirs  nor  any 
other  through  them  shall  be  able  to  claim  any  share  in  the 
patronage  or  advowson  of  the  said  church  save  this  that  they 
shall  be  first  after  the  said  Walter  and  the  Bishop  in  all  masses 
memorials  prayers  orisons  and  hours. 

****** 

"  Dated  at  London  the  9th  of  May  in  the  year  of  Grace 
1361." 


IV 

Other    Benefactions    to    the    Monastery    through    Gifts    and 
Bequests. 

The  Founders  of  Cells  in  the  Great  Cloister,  viz.  Sir  Walter 
de  Manny  :  Sir  William  Walworth  :  Adam  Fraunceys  :  Lady 
Mary  de  St.  Pol  (countess  of  Pembroke)  :  Thomas  Aubrey 
and  his  wife  Alicia  (or  Felicia)  :  Margaret  wife  of  Frederic 
Tilney  (or  Thymelby) :  Sir  Robert  Knolles  and  Dame  Constance 
his  wife  :  Dan  John  Bokingham,  Bishop  of  Lincoln  :  Dan 
Thomas  Hatfield,  Bishop  of  Durham :  Sir  William  Ufford, 
Earl  of  Suffolk :  Dan  Richard  Clyderhow,  Esquire,  Armiger  : 
John  Clyderhow,  Clerk :  William  Symmes :  Dame  Joanna, 
widow  of  William  Brenche  (Brenchly),  Knight :  Dame  Margery 
Nerford  and  Christina  Ypstones  her  maid  [ail  these  cells  were 
founded  under  the  usual  condition  of  perpetual  prayers  for  the 
souls  of  the  founders  and  of  others  named  by  them.  The 
same  conditions  apply  in  almost  all  cases  to  benefactions 
(a)  by  indenture  in  the  lifetime  of  the  benefactor  and  (b)  to 
bequests  under  Wills]. 

1431.  William  Symmes  and  Ann  Tatersall  gave  the  great 

conduit. 
1436.  John  Clyderhow  gave  the  Little  Cloister  and  the  chapel 

of  St.  Mary  Magdalene  in  it. 

1453.  Sir  John  Popham,  Royal  Treasurer,  Chancellor  of 
Maine  and  Anjou,  gave  the  chapel  dedicated  to 
St.  Michael  and  St.  John  Baptist,  and  the  little 
chapel  to  the  east  of  it  dedicated  to  St.  Jerome 
and  St.  Bernard  the  abbot,  and  endowed  them  with 
the  Manor  of  Rolleston. 


322  APPENDIX    B 

1475.  William  Freeman,  sometime  clerk  of  St.  John  of 
Jerusalem,  gave  the  Chapel  of  St.  Agnes  in  the  north 
side  of  the  church. 

1481.  Robert  Hislett  gave  the  altar  and  chapel  in  the 
Cemetery  (Charterhouse  Square)  dedicated  to  the 
Blessed  and  ever  Virgin  Mary  and  all  the  Saints 
(M.S.M.L). 

Richard  II,  by  Charter  under  the  great  seal,  granted  the 
advowson  of  the  Church  of  Edlesburgh  and  leave  to  appropriate 
the  same ;  the  monks  being  bound  that  one  of  the  brethren 
specially  celebrate  and  pray  for  the  souls  of  Richard  II :  Lady 
Ann,  Queen  :  Lord  Edward  Prince  of  Wales  (the  Black  Prince) : 
the  father  of  Lord  Edward,  Richard's  Brother  :  the  father 
of  Princess  Joan  :  Edward  III :  and  all  the  faithful  departed. 
M.S.M.I. 

There  also  exist  Indentures  whereby  the  monks  are  bound 
to  offer  prayer  in  return  for  benefactions  :  and  between  40  and 
50  wills  are  given  by  Sharpe,  in  which  bequests  are  made  to 
the  Monastery.  These  bequests  in  some  cases  seem  to  include 
the  condition  of  burial  within  the  precincts. 


The  following  Monuments  *  of  persons  buried  in  the  Church, 
Chapels  or  Cloister  are  mentioned  by  Stow. 

Sir  Walter  de  Manny,  Founder  :  [in  the  middle  of  the  choir 
in  front  of  the  High  Altar ;  a  fragment  is  preserved  in  our 
chapel]. 

Dame  Margaret  de  Manny,  wife  of  the  Founder. 

Sir  William  de  Manny,  brother  of  the  Founder. 

Marmaduke  Lumley. 

Sir  Lawrence  Bromley,  Knight. 

Sir  Edward  Hederset,  Knight. 

Dame  Johan  Borough. 

Sir  John  Dorewent  Water,  Knight. 

Katherine,  daughter  to  Sir  William  Babington. 

Blanch,  daughter  to  Hugh  Waterton. 

Katherine,  wife  to  John  at  Poole,  daughter  and  heir  to 
Richard  de  Lacie. 

William  Rawiin. 

Sir  John  Lenthaine,  Knight  (query  Leynham  ?)  and  Dame 
Margaret,  daughter  of  John  Fray. 

John  Peake,  Esq. 

*  The  Priors  and  Monks  are  not  mentioned.  Their  burial-ground 
lay  at  the  south-west  corner  of  the  Great  Cloister. 


APPENDIX    B  323 

William  Baron  and  William  Baron,  Esquire. 

Sir  Thomas  Thwaites,  Knight. 

Philip  Morgan,  Bishop  of  Ely,  1434. 

In  the  cloystre  Sir  Bartholemew  Rede,  Knight.     Mayor 
of  London,  buried  1505. 

Sir  John  Popham,  Treasurer  of  England. 

Sir  Robert  Rede  d.  1519,  Chief  Justice  of  Court  of  Common 
Pleas  was  buried  in  the  Chapel  of  St.  Catharine  in  the  Church 
of  the  Carthusians  Charterhouse,  where  he  had  founded  a 
Chauntry  with  a  salary  of  8£  a  year  for  30  years.  Indenture 
dated  July  18,  1517.  Conventual  Leases.  London.  No  138. 
Sir  John  Heth  was  one  of  the  Chauntry  priests.  Sir  Robert 
Rede  was  founder  of  the  Rede  lectures  at  Cambridge. 

VI 

List  of  the  belongings  of  a  Carthusian  Monk  of  the  London 
Charterhouse  at  his  transference  to  the  Charterhouse 
of  Mount  Grace,  Jan.  1519-20,  Record  Office,  State 
Papers,  Henry  VIII,  vol.  iii,  p.  606  ;  given  in  vol.  xviii, 
Yorkshire  Archceological  Society. 

Be  yt  Remembyrd  that  I  Dane  [Dan,  Dom  or  Dominus] 
Thomas  Golwyne  monke  professyd  of  the  howse  of  London 
hadde  w*  me  by  the  lycens  of  the  honorable  ffader  Prior  of  the 
sayd  howse  of  London,  Dan  Wylliam  Tynbegh  :  when  I  departyd 
from  London  un  to  Mownte  Grace  All  these  things  under 
wrytten  the  XXV  day  of  January  in  the  yere  of  owre  lorde 
MLCCCCCXIX. 

Imfirimis  iij  habyts  as  they  come  by  cowrse. 

Item  ij  newe  stamyn  shyrts  and  j  olde. 

Item  ij  newe  stamyn  colys  [cowls]  and  j  olde. 

Item  ij  newe  hodys  and  j  olde. 

Item  a  newe  coote  lynyde  and  an  olde  mantell. 

Item  a  wyde  sloppe  furryd  to  put  over  all  my  gere  of  the 
gyfte  of  my  lady  Convay. 

Item  a  newe  cappe  and  an  olde. 

Item  a  newe  pylche  [pelice,  fur  gown]  of  the  gyft  of  Mr. 
Saxby. 

Item  an  olde  pylche.     And  iij  payer  of  hosen. 

Item  iij  payer  of  newe  sokks  and  ij  payer  of  olde. 

Item  iij  olde  sylecs  [hairshirts]  and  a  lumbare. 

Item  a  new  payer  of  korkyd  shone  lynyd  and  j  payer  of 
doble  solyd  shone. 

Item  a  payer  of  blanketts  and  ij  goode  pylows  and  ij  lytell 
pylows  and  a  kosshyn  to  knele  on. 

Item  a  newe  mantell  by  the  gyfte  of  Syr  John  Rawson 
Knyght  of  the  Roods. 


324  APPENDIX    B 

Item  a  lytell  brasyn  morter  w*  a  pestell  gevyn  by  the 
gyfte  of  a  frende  of  myn. 

Item  ij  pewter  dysshes  ij  sawcers  an  a  podynger  and  a  lytell 
sqware  dysshe  for  butter. 

Item  a  new  chafyng  dysshe  of  laten  [plate-tin]  gevyn  to  us 
and  ij  newe  tyne  botylls  gevyn  by  a  kynsman  of  owrs. 
Item  a  brasyn  chafer  that  ys  to  hete  in  water. 
Item  a  brasse  panne  of  a  galon  gevyn  to  us  lyke  wyse. 
Item  a  lytell  brasyn  skelett    [skillet  =  bucket  or  pot]  w* 
a  stele  [handle]. 

Item  a  payer  of  new  felt  boots  and  ij  payer  of  lynyd  sleppers 
for  mateyns.  Item  a  fayer  laten  sconse. 

These  boks  drawen  together  by  lyne  be  yn  velome. 

*  Item  a  fayer  wrytten  yornall  made  by  the  cost  of 
Masters  Saxby  havynge  a  claspe  of  sylver  and  an  ymage  of 
Seynt  Jerom  gravyn  ther  yn  the  seconde  lef  of  advent  begyn- 
nyth  Jerusalem  alleluia  this  boke  standyth  in  makynge 
iij  li. 

Item  a  fayer  written  primer  w*  a  Kalendar  and  many 
other  Rewls  of  oure  religion  theryn. 

Item  a  fayer  written  sawter  w*  a  fayer  ymage  of  Seynt 
Jerom  theryn  in  the  begynnynge  the  ij  de  lef  of  the  sawter 
begynnyth  te  :  erudimini  [i.e.  from  Psalm  II,  v.  10], 

Item  a  large  fayer  boke  wrytten  wl  the  lessons  of  dirige 
and  the  psalmys  of  buryinge  and  letany  and  Response  theryn 
notyd. 

Item  a  boke  wrytten   conteyninge  certeyn  masses  w*  the 
canon  of  the  Masse  and   a  kalendar  in  the  begynnynge  of 
the  boke  w*  a  fayer  ymag  of  Jhesu  standyng  befor. 
Item  a  lytell  penance  boke  wryttyn. 
Item  a  wrytten  of  prayers  of  diverse  saynts  w*  ymags 
lymnyd  and  dirige  wrytten  theryn. 
Item  a  wrytten  boke  of  papyr  w*  divers  storyes  of  ars  moriendi 
theryn. 

Item  a  printed  portews  [portable  breviary]  by  the  gyft 
of  Mr.  Rawson. 

Item  a  yornall  and  a  printyd  primer  gcvyn  by  Mr  Parker. 
Item  a  lytell  legent  aurey  [perhaps  Caxton's  Golden  Legend] 
in  printe. 

Item  a  shepds  kalendar  in  printe. 

f  Item  Ysops  fabylls  [perhaps  Caxton's  Edition]  in  printe. 

Item  directorium  aureum  in  printe. 

*  It  is  evident  that  this  monk  had  for  his  handicrafts  Weaving 
and  MS.  writing. 

t  Caxton,  Wynkyn-de-Worde,  and  Julian  Notary,  all  printed 
editions  of  the  Golden  Legeiid.  Caxton  printed  an  JVsop's  Fables 
with  many  woodcuts. 


APPENDIX    B  325 

*  Item  a  complete  frame  prto   wefe   wl  Corsys   [courses] 
w*  xix  polysses  [pulleys]  of  brasse  and  xix  plummetts  of  lede 
w*  ij  swordys  of  yron  to  worke  w*  in  the  frame. 

*  Item  a  dowbyll  styll  to  make  w*  aqua  vite  that  ys  to  say 
a  lymbeke  w*  a  serpentyn  closyd  both  yn  oon. 

The  Statutes  of  the  order  of  1259,  by  Prior  Guigo,  set 
forth  that  to  each  monk  are  to  be  given  : — 

"  For  writing  a  desk  pens  chalk  2  pumices  2  inkhorns  a 
penknife  2  razors  or  scrapers  for  scraping  parchment,  a  pointer 
an  awl,  a  weight,  a  rule,  a  ruler  for  ruling,  tables,  a  writing 
style. 

"  But  if  a  brother  be  of  another  craft  which  very  rarely 
happens  amongst  us,  for  almost  all  whom  we  receive,  if  it  can 
be  done  we  teach  to  write  [i.e.  to  transcribe  MSS.]  he  has 
suitable  tools  for  his  craft. 

"  And  there  are  given  to  him  2  pots  2  plates  a  third  for 
bread  and  a  lid  for  it.  And  there  is  a  fourth  somewhat  bigger 
for  washing  up.  2  spoons  a  knife  for  bread,  a  flagon,  a  cup, 
an  ewer,  a  salt,  a  pan,  a  towel,  tinder  for  his  fire  fuel  a  strike- 
a-light,  wood,  a  chopper.  But  for  works  an  axe." 


VII 

Original  deed  now  in  Charterhouse  Museum,  Godalming,  once 
a  Phillips'  MS.  14004.  (A  copy  in  French  in  Charterhouse 
Muniment  Room.)  An  agreement  between  John  Ffereby 
and  Margery,  his  wife,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Prior  of 
Charterhouse  on  the  other,  for  the  conveyance  of  water 
from  Islington  to  the  Great  Cloister.  The  deed  is  wit- 
nessed by  Duke  Humphrey.  The  plan  of  the  water  supply, 
in  three  skins,  now  in  Charterhouse  Muniment  Room, 
London,  evidently  belonged  to  this  deed. 

"  Johannes  Ffereby  (or  Fferiby)  Armiger  et  Margeria 
Sponsa  Ejus  Et  Prior  [John  Maplestede]  et  Conventus  Domus 
Salutationis  Beat?e  Marie  de  Ordine  Cartusiensi  Juxta  Londinum. 
Dec.  2  in  ninth  year  of  Henry  VI  [1430]." 

The  expenses  of  this  supply,  together  with  those  of  the  build- 
ing of  the  great  Conduit  in  the  middle  of  the  Great  Cloister, 
were  paid  out  of  the  goods  of  William  Symmes  and  Anne 
Tatersale.  (M.S.M.I.  under  date  1431.) 

*  See  note  on  previous  page. 


326  APPENDIX    B 

VIII 

Record  Office  MS.  abbreviated. 


Richard  Leighton 
Thomas  Leyghe 
Francis  Cave 


Thomas  Thacker 


A  declaration  made  the  22d  day  of 
Merche  30th  year  of  Henry  VIII  (1537) 
by  the  said  ComyssSners  concerning 


rr          pi  .    i  the  Goodes  and  Chattalls  of  the  late 


Charterhouse      in     the      County     of 


Middlesex  by  Richard  Riche  and  others. 
Date.    Nov.  12.     30.    Henry  VIII. 

The  arreariyes  owing  to  the  said  house. 

Plate  *  delyvered  to  John  Wyllyams  [Sir  John  Williams] 
400  and  47  ounces. 

For  a  vestment  also  delivered]  to  the  said  John  Wylliams 
ornamented  stuff  of  household  vestments  solde,  9.  16.  8. 

End  of  all  the  chargas,  9.  16.  8. 

Item  for  costes  charges  expenses  rewards,  5.  16.  8. 

And  then  Court  debt,  3.  19.  0. 

Memorandum  The  Prior  must  paye  all  rewards  wages 
liveries  as  well  to  the  Monkes  Convent  and 
servants  of  the  revenue  by  him  received. 

Mem.        The   Bells   lead   and   other  edifices  there 
remain  unsold  and  defaced. 

A  vestment  of  white  velvet  wythe  an  Angel  of  Gold 
embroidered  and  set  wythe  pearls  all  which  plate  and  ornaments 
were  delivered  by  order  of  my  Lord  Privy  Seal  [Thomas 
Cromwell]  to  Thomas  Thakestone  to  the  use  of  our  Sovereign 
Lord  the  King. 

The  High  Altar  of  the  story  of  the  Passion  of  boune  [ivory] 
wrought  with  small  images  curyoslye.  At  either  ende  of  the 
said  altar  an  image  the  on  [one]  of  St  John  Baptist  the  other 
of  St  Peter  and  above  the  said  Altar  8  tabernacles  the  nether 
front  of  the  altar  of  alablaster  with  the  Trinitie  and  other 
Images.  On  the  south  side  of  the  same  at  the  end  of  the  Altar 
a  cupporde  *  painted  with  the  picture  of  Christ.  On  the 
north  side  of  the  Altar  an  Ambrey  with  a  letter.  In  the  same 
Quere  a  lampe  and  a  bason  to  beare  waxe  both  of  latten  [plated 
tin].  The  Stalles  of  the  said  Quere  on  either  side  with  a  lectorn 
undefaced. 

St.  John's  Chapel  in  the  south  side  of  the  Church.  A 
Chapel  of  St.  John  the  evangelist  and  the  other  of  St.  Augustin 

*  This  would  have  doubtless  included  the  Holy  Vessels  left  to 
the  church  by  Michael  de  Northburg.  See  Appendix  B,  ii. 


APPENDIX    B  327 

at  either  end  of  the  said  Altar.  Item  the  said  Chapel  is  sealed 
with  oak  wainscoat  and  other  horde  about  three  quarter's  high. 

The  Body  of  the  Church.  The  rood  loft  with  an  image 
of  Christ  crucified  and  mounteyn.  .  .  .  The  two  alters  on 
either  side  of  the  Quere  doore  on  the  south  side  an  altar  wythe 
a  table  [picture  or  sculpture]  and  the  assumption  of  our  ladye 
gylte  there  remaynynge. 

Chapel  of  S.  Jerome  *  an  alter  table  with  a  crucifix  of 

Mary  and  John  two  images  at  either  ende  of  the  Said  alter 
the  one  of  Jrme  (Jerome)  the  other  of  Saint  Barnard  partly 
being  sealed  with  wainscot.  Item  2  seats  and  a  lyttell  coffer. 

Item  an  alter  of  St  Michael  with  a  fair  table  [picture] 
of  the  Crucifix  Mary  and  John  and  at  either  ende  of  the  alter 
an  image  the  one  of  Saint  Michael  the  other  of  Saint  John. 

Mr.  Rede's  f  Chapel  an  altar  wythe  a  table  of  the  Trinity 
the  4  doctors  of  the  Church  the  same  chapel  being  seelyd 
with  wainscot  and  2  Covers  all  remaynynge  undefaced. 

Item  nyghe  unto  the  said  chapel  a  pewe  with  2  seats  of 
wainscot. 

The  North  side  of  the  Quere. 

An  altar  with  a  table  of  Saint  Anne  gylt  with  certain  other 
images  gylt  and  painted  item  a  table  with  an  alter.  A  table 
of  St  Anne  and  our  Ladye  with  certen  other  images  above  the 
Said  Alter  at  either  ende  and  an  image  with  a  tabernacle  and 
betwixt  every  one  of  the  said  Alters  above  wrytten  there  is  a 
partytyon  of  wainscot. 

The  West  ende  of  the  Churche.  On  the  North  side  an 
alter  with  a  table  in  the  myddes  a  Crucifix  of  Marye  and 
John  fayre  painted  Item  in  the  myddes  of  the  said  Ende  a 
partytyon  of  timber  with  pykes  of  iron  above. 

The  Chapter  House.  An  alter  wythe  a  table  of  alablaster 
with  seven  joies  of  our  Ladye  at  the  nether  ende  of  the  sayd 
Chapter  House  a  lytell  Chapel  of  waynescote. 

The  Sexton  Chamber  [Sacristy]. 

A  cheste  wythe  3  lockes  contayning  all  the  evydence  of 
Adrian's  Chauntrey.  Item  a  nother  plate  Cheste  withyn  the 
same  bounden  with  iron.  Item  a  messe  boke  with  a  Cubberde 
and  certeyn  other  bowkes  with  a  large  troughe  of  wood. 

In  the  Fish  Halle  iiii  olde  tables  3  formes  an  olde  painted 
cloth. 

In  Egipte  [alias  the  Fleshhouse  in  Charterhouse  Square] 
2  tables  and  2  formes. 

In  the  Frater  certain  tables  and  waynscote. 

*  St.  Jerome,  St.  Barnard,  St.  Michael,  St.  John.  These  altars 
and  the  figures  of  the  saints  are  recorded  in  M.S.M.I.,  under  date 
1453. 

t  Rede.     See  Appendix  B,  v. 


328  APPENDIX    B 

In  the  Cloyster  a  laver  of  decayed  metall. 

In  the  drynkynge  place.  2  round  tables,  3  forms  a  chayre  a 
clieste  an  andyron  and  an  old  picture. 

In  the  Priors  new  cell  *  a  pan  and  a  furnesse. 

In  the  Laundry  a  pan  and  a  furnesse. 

In  the  Brewhouse  2  brewing  leadys :  a  mashing  fatt  withe 
trough  of  lead  2  yelinge  [sic]  fattes.  26  Runnells  with  other  old 
tubbes. 

In  the  Matte  House. 

A  horse  mylne  with  the  appurtenances. 

In  the  new  Brewhouse. 

A  greate  leade  3  greate  fattes  and  other  old  tubbes. 

In  the  Bakehouse,  3  moulding  tubbes  2  trowes  a  brasspan. 

In  the  Store  House,  32  pipes  of  lead. 

In  Bowlting  House,  a  beam  of  iron,  4  half  hundred  weight 
of  lead  and  a  moulding  table. 

In  the  Fish  Kitchen  4  cisterns  of  lead  all  in  one  a  little 
furness  of  Brass,  a  skyppinge  borde  and  2  hangynge  shelves. 

In  the  larder  8  shelves. 

In  the  Butterye  12  tubbes  greate  and  smalle  cubbordys 
with  certeyn  ole  bordys  and  a  long  table. 

Over  and  besides  all  the  edificiones  and  byldynges  of  the 
Church,  Isles,  Steple,  Chapitoure  house  and  Ffrayter  as  all 
other  celles  and  chambers  with  all  the  lead  bells  glass  yron 
gravestones  tombes  and  pavinge  stones  which  remayneth 
undefaced  untyl  the  Kinges  pleasure  be  furder  known  except 
certeyn  Cellys  which  were  defaced  from  the  time  of  the  dis- 
solucyon  over  and  besides  certeyn  stallys  and  seatys  in  the 
bodye  or  vales  [?]  of  the  Churche  whyche  were  solde  as  yrafter 
is  specified. 

[To  Lord  Latimer  [husband  of  Katherine  Parr,  see  p.  307] 
is  due  30£  and  he  holds  in  pawn  an  olde  myter  and  a  cross. 
Debt  incurred  by  the  predecessor  of  the  Pryor.] 

Item  to  Thomas  Howey  for  money  boroed  of  him  by  the 
present  Pryor  for  the  use  of  the  Pryor. 

Total  debts  53.  3.  4. 

[Then  follows  an  inventory  of  miscellaneous  vestments, 
napery,  etc.,  from  which  the  following  extracts  are  taken.] 

Baudykin,  a  Red  velvet  vestment. 

An  old  dore,  an  old  cloke,  7  seats  and  settles  in  the  Body  of 
the  churche,  2  feather  beds,  2  bolsters,  2  blankets,  an  old 

*  This  appears  to  have  been  situated  near  where  now  we  see  the 
open  space  with  columns,  and  a  fireplace  west  of  the  so-called  Chapel 
Cloister.  T  believe  it  to  have  been  the  present  Preacher's  House 
(1914). 


APPENDIX    B  329 

coverlet,  a  standing  table  and  chair,  17  napkins  and  table 
cloths. 

The  Flesh  Kitchen  [this  was  otherwise  called  Egipte.  It 
was  outside  the  Monastery  in  Charterhouse  Churchyarde  or 
Square]  2  cordes. 

Priors  Cell. 

6  silver  spoons,  a  fatte  of  silver,  other  utensils  belonging 
to  the  Prior  yeven  to  the  Prior  [Trafford]  in  reward  and  over 
and  above  to  every  monk  their  bokes  and  stuff  in  their  own 
cells  and  to  every  monk  a  vestment  with  the  appurtenances 
and  6  vestments  given  to  6  parish  Churches. 

Payments  made 

John  Grove  and  William  Dale  *  kept  the  House  for  12  weeks 
30  shillings. 

Paid  to  William  Dale  from  dissolucyon  to  March  3rd 
following  40  shillings. 

Paid  for  2  Sunday  dinners  for  said  commissioners  their 
clerks  and  servants,  and  making  the  inventory  and  executing 
the  King's  affairs  26/8. 

To  Thomas  Owen  for  keeping  orchards  gardens  and  cells 
and  board  wages  in  gross  20/-. 

Mownkes  [so  spelt], 
To  William  Trafford  4£. 

Edmund  Sterne  Treasurer  40/-. 

Thomas  Harman  40/-. 

John  Evyns  40/-. 

Richard  Tregore  40/-. 

Wyllyam  Merit  40/-. 

Maurice  Chauncey  40/-. 

Bullen  40/- 

Nicholsen  40/-. 

Baker  etc  etc  etc. 
[The  Conversi  got  20/-  each.] 

To  wages  and  liveries  for  servants  10/-  wages +13/4  liveries. 

Pensions.  To  the  Prior  no  pension  assigned  but  remitted 
unto  the  King's  highness  his  most  honourable  council  And 
the  said  House  remains  as  yit  was  delivered  to  John  Grove  and 
William  Dale  by  the  Commissioners  until  the  King's  pleasure 
be  further  known. 

[William  Trafford  signed  the  surrender  June  12,  Henry  VIII 
29th  year.  1537.] 

*  This  is  the  William  Dale,  the  caretaker,  whose  report  in  the 
Record  Office  is  given  in  Appendix  B,  ix. 


330  APPENDIX    B 


IX 

Some  Documents  relating  to  the  Distribution  of  the  Effects 
of  the   Charterhouse  (State   Papers  Domestic  30  Henry 

VIII  ;   - ).    (From   the   original   in   the    Public   Record 
olo/ 

Office.)  * 

"  Received  of  William  Daylle  by  the  hands  of  William 
Doone,  at  the  commandment  of  Master  Doctor  Lee,  Doctor 
Layton  and  others,  the  24th  of  November,  30th  Henry  VIII 
(1538)  for  Master  Doctor  Lee,  in  the  Church  of  the  Charter- 
house in  London. 

"  First,  seven  pews  for  seats,  a  desk,  and  two  panes  of 
plain  panel  that  stood  upon  two  chests. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  the  late  PRIOR  t  of  the  said  house,  all 
the  wood  given  to  the  said  late  PRIOR  by  the  King's  Visitors, 
which  was  sold  for  £15. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  the  King's  Gardener  coming  to  the 
said  Daylle  in  the  King's  name,  for  the  King's  Garden  at 
Chelsea,  all  such  bays,  Rosemary  grafts,  and  other  such  like 
things  as  was  meet  for  his  grace  in  the  said  garden,  showing 
unto  the  said  Daylle  the  King's  commission  for  the  same. 

"  Item,  delivered  unto  Master  Richard  Cromwell's  gardeners, 
all  such  bay  trees  and  grafts  as  they  thought  convenient  for 
them. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Master  Fitz  Hugh,  a  whole  cell  of 
wainscot  as  it  stood,  by  Master  Richard  Cromwell's  token, 
which  was  a  gold  ring. 

"  Item,  certain  brethren  took  away  (the  fittings  of)  their 
cells  as  they  stood,  by  your  mastership's  J  commandment  as 
they  say. 

"  Item,  all  the  Kitchen  stuff,  and  buttery  stuff,  sold  to 
Doctor  Cave  is  had  away  by  Master  Doctor  Cave's  servant  as  it 
was  preysed  by  the  visitors. 

"  Item,  Doctor  Byllowse'  servant  had  two  cart  load  of  hay 
away,  by  commandment  of  the  visitors. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Sir  Arthur  Darcy  the  custody  of  three 
small  cells  adjoining  to  his  house,  which  he  had  of  my  Lord 
Privy  Seal  by  Master  Chancellor  of  the  Augmentation's  com- 
mandment, upon  a  token  from  my  Lord  Privy  Seal,  and  by  the 
said  Master  Lee's  assent. 

*  The  spelliog  of  this  document  is  so  strange  and  unintelligible 
that  it  has  been  deemed  advisable  to  modernise  it.  Dale  was 
completely  illiterate. 

t  William  Trafford. 

i  Thomas  Cromwell. 


APPENDIX   B  331 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Master  Doctor  Talbote  the  Custody 
of  the  New  Cell,  by  the  Commissioner's  commandment. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Master  Wuddall,  the  custody  of  one 
cell,  by  Master  Doctor  Lee's  commandment  and  Master 
Thacker's. 

"  Item,  sold  and  delivered  to  Master  Pickering,  by  Master 
Doctor  Cave's  commandment,  all  the  wheat  and  malt  in  the 
house. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Master  William  Dune,  for  the  use  of 
Master  Doctor  Lee,  twelve  elmen  boards  and  quarters  as  many 
as  made  the  full  of  a  load. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Dune,  one  grindstone. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  the  King's  Gardener,  the  22nd  of 
November,  two  loads  of  grafts. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  the  King's  Gardener,  the  25th  of 
November,  one  load  of  grass. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  the  cator  of  my  Lord  Privy  Seal's 
house,  three  baskets  of  herbs. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  the  King's  gardener,  the  23rd  of 
November,  three  loads  of  bay  trees. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  the  King's  gardeners,  out  of  the  orchard 
of  the  Charterhouse,  three  trees,  grafts  of  all  sorts  as  doth 
appear  by  the  pits  where  they  were  taken,  in  all  91  trees. 

"  Item,  sold  and  delivered  to  Master  Doctor  Cave,  all  the 
Vinegar. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Master  Semer  and  Master  Smith  on 
St.  Nicholas  eve  last,  200  Carps. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Fey's  Mill  pond  to  Doctor  Lay  ton, 
100  Carps  for  the  King's  Store. 

"  Item,  to  Master  Layton,  twelve  car  load  of  timber,  and 
six  car  load  of  stones. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Master  Brooke,  all  the  New  timber  in 
the  Charterhouse  Wood-yard  bought  for  the  Goodman  of  the 
Splayed  Eagle  in  Gratyus  Street  [Gracechurch]. 

"  Item  to  the  said  Master  Brooke,  all  the  hay  that  Master 
Doctor  Bell  has  left  behind  him  in  the  Charterhouse  in  London. 

"  Item,  Master  Doctor  Layton's  servant  fetched  away 
four  Merlin  birds,  and  all  things  belonging  thereto. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Master  Layton,  three  boards  in  the 
bakehouse,  and  other  stuff  thereto  belonging. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Master  Layton,  a  bundle  of  roses. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  Master  Hay  don,  Receiver  of  the 
Charterhouse  all  the  wainscot  in  the  corner  cell,  the  23rd  of 
January. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  the  said  Master  Haydon,  22  new  pipes 
of  lead,  the  said  23rd  of  January,  by  the  commandment  of  the 
Chancellor  as  he  said. 


332  APPENDIX    B 

"  Item,  the  said  Master  Haydon  has  taken  and  laid  up  all 
the  timber  and  stones  that  he  could  find  about  the  Charterhouse 
which  was  necessary  for  the  King's  use. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  the  said  Master  Haydon,  22  cases  of 
glass,  which  were  taken  down  by  Owen  and  delivered  to  him 
to  keep  in  safe  guard  for  fear  of  stealing. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  William  Myles,  servant  to  my  Lord 
Privy  Seal,  the  custody  of  the  barber['s  shop],  and  the  cell 
adjoining  to  it,  by  the  commandment  of  Master  Doctor  Lee 
and  Master  Layton  the  28th  January. 

"  Item,  whereas  he  said  that  I  the  said  Keeper  should  have 
the  charge  of  the  Church,  I  never  had,  as  it  shall  be  proved, 
for  the  truth  is  that  Master  Doctor  Cave  has  had  the  Key  of 
the  Church  ever  since  the  House  was  suppressed,  and  has  it  at 
this  day ;  therefore,  sir,  it  is  nothing  in  my  charges,  and  I 
pray  your  good  mastership  to  charge  me  not  with  all. 

"  Item,  where  they  would  charge  me  with  seven  cells  next 
to  the  Church,  the  truth  is  I  never  had  the  keeping  of  none  of 
the  said  seven  cells,  but  one  Gerard  Haydon  first  after  the 
suppression  of  the  house  had  the  keeping  of  five  of  the  said 
cells,  and  the  keeping  of  Sir  Arthur  Darcy's  house.  And  after 
that,  Haydon  entered  the  Earl  of  Angus  to  the  said  house  and 
five  cells. 

"  And  after  the  said  earl,  entered  Sir  Marmaduke  Constable 
to  the  said  house  and  five  cells,  and  (he)  occupies  them  to  this 
day.  And  for  the  other  two  cells,  one  the  same  time  has  been 
in  the  keeping  of  one  Master  Talbot  since  the  suppression  of 
the  said  house,  and  is  yet  unto  this  day.  Wherefore,  I  trust 
your  mastership,  of  your  goodness,  will  not  charge  me  with  all 
the  keeping  of  the  said  seven  cells. 

"  Item,  so  (there)  remains  in  the  keeping  of  William  Daylle, 
the  27th  of  February,  by  commandment  of  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Augmentations,  twenty  cells,  certain  lodgings,  with  a  hall, 
a  kitchen,  a  buttery,  a  wine  cellar,  the  old  brewhouse  with 
ij  ledys  and  mashefats  ij  yell  fatts  and  xx  Kymnells  in  the 
same,  three  stables,  the  saw  pit,  the  washing  house,  with  one 
place  called  the  fij shall  with  four  houses  of  horses  (?)  under 
the  same  two  chambers,  and  the  cundeth  [conduit],  the  new 
brewhouse  with  a  great  leyd  and  iij  fatts  in  the  same,  a  horse 
mill  which  is  above  the  old  brewhouse,  with  divers  things 
appertaining  to  the  same. 

"  Item,  delivered  to  the  said  Daylle,  by  the  commandment 
of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Augmentations,  the  custody  of  all  the 
stuff  remaining  in  the  storehouse.  And  the  master  is  com- 
manded to  deliver  the  said  stuff  to  the  said  Daylle  by  bill 
indented. 

"  Item,  for  the  rest  of  the  said  cells,  which  is  twenty,  there 


APPENDIX    B  383 

was  one  which  was  keeper  with  me,  whose  name  was  Thomas 
Gromes,  servant  to  Doctor  Lee,  which  Thomas  did  sell  unto 
Gerard  Haydon  all  the  wainscot  being  hi  one  great  cell  for 
£1  6s.  8d.,  of  which  sum  the  said  Thomas  and  William  have 
received  of  the  said  Haydon  55.,  and  so  the  rest  of  the  said 
money  remains  in  the  hands  of  the  said  Haydon. 

"  Item,  there  was  one  little  Sir  William  (who)  defaced  and 
took  down  all  the  new  wainscot  in  a  cell  which  was  late(ly) 
billeted  to  his  own  use  as  he  intented.  Notwithstanding  the 
truth  is  that  one  William  Daylle  and  George  Wudworth, 
servants  unto  my  Lord  Privy  Seal,  found  the  said  wainscot 
where  the  said  Sir  William  had  laid  it  up  ;  and  we  took  it  away 
from  thence,  and  kept  it  to  such  time  as  we  were  imprisoned, 
and  then  we  were  glad  to  sell  it  to  keep  us  with. 

"  Item,  the  other  two  cells  of  the  said  twenty,  which  one 
Master  Canton  did  keep,  which  two  cells  are  spoiled,  but  in 
my  conscience  no  fault  in  the  said  Canton,  nor  none  of  his  folk, 
for  I  never  knew  the  said  Canton  nor  none  of  his  hurt  the  said 
house  nor  the  orchard  at  any  time,  but  as  an  honest  man  and 
true  keeper ;  and  so  did  none  but  only  Master  Hurde  and  the 
said  Canton,  keeper  of  the  said  orchard. 

"  Item,  there  was  Master  Few  that  brought  me  a  gold  ring 
for  a  token  from  Master  Richard  Cromwell,  commanding  me 
to  deliver  all  the  wainscot  in  one  cell,  as  it  stood  to  the  said 
Few,  saying  that  token  should  be  a  discharge. 

"  Item,  for  the  great  clock,  a  gentleman  called  Master 
Mins,  bought  it  and  paid  for  it ;  and  one  Master  Polsted  did 
send  me,  William  Daylle  a  ring  off  his  finger  commanding  me 
to  deliver  the  said  clock,  and  I  told  him  I  could  not  come  to  it, 
for  Doctor  Kew  had  the  keys  of  the  belfry  ;  and  so  his  servant 
delivered  the  said  clock  to  Master  Mins. 

"  Item,  the  said  Haydon  had  laid  up  a  house  full  of  wainscot 
within  Sir  Arthur  D'arcy's  house,  whereof  he  then  had  keeping  ; 
and  after  (he)  carried  the  same  wainscot  away. 

"  Item,  the  said  Haydon  gathered  all  the  wood,  timber, 
and  stone,  lying  abroad  in  the  Charterhouse,  to  the  King's  use 
as  he  said. 

"  Item,  Thomas  Owen  found  and  took  down  25  cases  of 
glass,  delivering  them  to  the  said  Haydon  for  the  King's  use. 

"  Item,  Thomas  Owen  found  and  took  away  six  cisterns  of 
lead,  and  delivered  them  to  the  said  Haydon. 

"  Item,  the  said  Thomas  Owen  has  all  the  cocks  of  the 
water  remaining  within  the  same  house. 

"  Item,  the  same  Thomas  has  one  of  the  six  tables  of  the 
Frater. 

"  Item,  Hilton  in  Chancery  Lane  has  one  of  the  said 
tables. 

3 


334  APPENDIX    B 

"  Item,  one  Davidson  at  Paul's  Wharf  has  one  of  the 
said  tables,  which  he  carried  through  the  Earl  of  Angus' 
house. 

"  Item,  all  the  wainscot  that  doth  lack  within  the  Frater 
was  given  to  Master  Sword-bearer  of  London,  by  Master 
Thacker's  token. 

"  Item,  all  the  wainscot,  lead  and  glass,  with  all  other 
things  lacking  within  the  three  cells,  in  the  keeping  of  Sir 
Marmduke  Constable,  was  clean  gone  before  his  coming  to 
them. 

"  Item,  the  wainscot  lacking  in  the  Prior's  cell  was  four 
pieces,  which  I  delivered  to  Thomas  Owen. 

"  Item,  I  have  taken  down  as  much  glass  as  did  make  and 
repair  a  dozen  windows,  as  well  within  the  porter's  lodge  as  in 
other  places  within  the  house.  As  for  the  rest  of  the  glass  of 
the  said  house,  I  will  depose  upon  a  book,  I  never  had  nor 
knew  set  to  any  use. 

"  Item,  all  the  cocks  and  pipes  wanting  within  the  said 
house  were  sold  by  Thomas  Owen  to  divers  persons,  which 
confesses  the  same ;  and  (they)  were  committed  to  his  charge 
only,  for  the  which  also  he  takes  his  wage. 

"  Item,  to  Sir  Marmaduke  Constable,  one  cock,  one  pipe. 
To  Master  William  Nevill,  one  cock,  one  pipe  ...  (in  all 
eight  cocks  and  eight  pipes). 

"  Item,  the  brethren  of  the  house  were  licensed  by  the 
visitors  to  take  away  such  things  as  was  meet  for  them,  as 
Thomas  Owen  and  John  Waner  say,  who  took  with  them  much 
of  the  wainscot,  as  then  did  appear.  Also  Doctor  Bells  had 
away  the  table  and  a  pair  of  tressels,  and  the  hangings,  and  a 
paper  called  mappa  mundi. 

"  Item,  Master  Doctor  Layton's  servant  sent  away  the 
new  cupboard,  and  the  bench,  out  of  the  drinking  buttery. 

"  Item,  Doctor  Cave's  servant  sent  away  one  round  table 
forth  of  the  said  buttery,  and  forth  of  the  Prior's  parlour 
another  round  table. 

"  Item,  the  said  visitors  had  all  the  rest  of  the  said  stuff 
which  was  in  the  Church  of  the  Charterhouse,  that  is  to  say, 
chalices,  vestments,  with  all  other  ornaments  within  the  said 
Church  of  the  Charterhouse. 

"  Item,  the  said  visitors  did  give  away  four  great  painted 
tables,  standing  in  every  four  corner  of  the  Cloister  of  the  said 
Charterhouse. 

"  Item,  the  said  visitors  sent  away  all  the  beds  in  the 
guest  chambers. 

"  Item,  the  said  visitors  did  give  all  the  beds  and  books  to 
the  brethren  which  dwelt  in  the  said  cells. 

"  (Some)  of  the  said  brethren  took  away,  through  the  said 


APPENDIX    B  335 

gifts,  certain  boards  of  wainscot,  which  defaced  the  cells  very 
sore  within  the  said  Charterhouse. 

"  Item,  sir,  I  desire  your  good  mastership,  seeing  that 
Master  Mildmay,  the  King's  Auditor,  has  sworn  me,  William 
Daylle,  to  show  the  truth  of  all  the  stuff  being  gone  out  of 
the  Charterhouse,  therefore,  sir,  I  desire  your  good  mastership, 
for  the  King's  advantage  and  for  your  worship,  to  cause  Gerard 
Haydon  and  Brother  Richard  and  Thomas  Owen  to  be  sworn 
upon  a  book  what  things  they  have  known  go  out  of  the  Charter- 
house by  themselves  and  others ;  and  I  doubt  not  it  shall  be 
wholly  for  the  King's  advantage  if  they  be  true  men. 

"  Also,  Sir,  I  desire  your  mastership  of  your  goodness  to  be 
so  good  unto  me  (as)  to  speak  some  good  word  for  me,  being  a 
poor  man  which  has  kept  the  Charterhouse  the  space  of  a  year 
and  a  half,  and  was  promised  of  the  visitors  eight  pence  a  day. 

"  And  I  the  said  keeper  had  never  penny  therefor  but 
£3  6s.  Sd.  for  the  which  I  do  lose  the  best  yeoman's  master  in 
this  realm,  the  which  I  had  of  truly  paid  £5  and  three  liveries 
by  year. 

"  Therefore,  sir,  for  the  love  of  God,  and  in  the  way  of 
charity,  having  no  master  nor  wages,  and  my  wife  lying  sick 
this  twelvemonth  on  me,  your  mastership  having  the  name 
(of  one)  that  takes  pity  of  every  poor  man  and  woman  ;  where- 
fore I  trust  ye  will  have  pity  on  me,  so  I  can  say  no  more  to  your 
good  Mastership,  but  I  put  me  in  your  will  and  mercy  where 
I  have  offended  you  here  in  this  book,  so  He  that  bought  you 
save  you  and  have  you  in  His  keeping  at  His  pleasure  at  all 
times.  Written  by  me 

"  WILLIAM  DAYLLE." 


MS.  preserved  at  Charterhouse.  ADAMUS  CARTHUSIENSIS. 
Sermones  Adami  Cartusiensis  et  aliorum.  Vita  S.  Hugonis 
Episcopi.  Lincolniensis  Vita  Ejusdem  Ade,  etc.  Manuscript 
on  vellum  12  x8|  in  original  monastic  binding  of  massive  boards 
of  oak  covered  with  white  deerskin  and  with  the  ancient 
chased  clasps  attached  to  leather  thongs.  On  the  flyleaf  the 
inscription  "  Liber  Domus  Salutationis  Matris  Dei  Ordinis 
Carthusiensis  prope  London." 

This  MS.,  formerly  in  the  library  of  the  monastery,  was 
presented  to  Charterhouse  by  Bernard  Alfred  Quaritch,  O.C., 
in  1613,  a  few  months  before  his  death. 

Adam  the  Carthusian  was  earlier  the  Abbot  of  the  Prae- 
monstratensian  Monastery  of  Dryburgh  in  Scotland,  and 
became  a  Carthusian  monk  of  Witham.  This  MS.  of  fifteenth 


386  APPENDIX    B 

century  date  was  probably  transcribed  by  a  monk,  either  of 
Charterhouse,  Witham,  or  of  London  Charterhouse  itself.  The 
evidence  of  the  MS.  shows  that  the  opinion  expressed  in  the 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography  following  earlier  writers,  that 
Adam  of  Eynsham,  and  deacon  of  Lincoln,  a  friend  of  St. 
Hugh,  was  the  real  author  of  this  life  of  St.  Hugh  is  erroneous. 


APPENDIX   C 

DOCUMENTS  RELATING  TO  CHARTERHOUSE  IN 
THE  MANSION  PERIOD,  i.e.  FROM  THE  DATE 
OF  THE  SUPPRESSION  TO  THE  DATE  OF  THE 
SALE  TO  THOMAS  SUTTON. 


Record  office.  Augmentation  Office  Misc.  Books,  vol.  235. 
Westminster  June  12.  June  34  Henry  VIII.  1542. 
[License  to  John  Bridges  and  Thomas  Hale  of  Charter- 
house for  the  keeping  therein  of  the  King's  nets,  halls  [or 
hales,  i.e.  hunting  nets]  and  pavilions.]  Extract,  the 
abbreviations  as  in  the  original. 


Rex  omnibus  ad  quos  etc  Saltm.  Scietis  qd  nos  tarn  p 
bona  et  salva  custodia  et  regarda  tentorior  halor  et  pavilionm 
nror  (sic)  de  tempore  in  tempus  quarn  p  cunctis  aliis  causis  nos 
spialit  movend  de  gra  nra  spiali  ex  eta  scientia  et  mero  motu 
nris  dedimus  et  concessimus  ac  p  presentes  damus  et  concedimus 
diltis  svientibz  nris  Johi  Bridges  valect  halar  et  tentorior  nror 
et  Thomae  Hale  gromet  eordem  Totum  domum  et  scitum  nup 
domus  sive  Prioratus  Carthusien  ppe  civitatem  nram  London 
dissolut  ac  totam  eccliam  campanile  cimiterm  cellas  claustra 
cellaria  solaria  stabula  ortos  pomeria  gardin  a  aquas  stagna 
vivaria  aqueductus  fontes  et  capita  eordem  ac  omnia  alia 
domos  aedificia  tras  utensilia  et  alias  res  quascunque  cum  ptin 
tarn  infra  quam  supra  muros  et  pcint  ejusdem  nup  domus  sive 
Prioratus  existen. 

****** 

Teste  Rico  Riche  Milite  apud  Westm  duo  decimo  die  Junii 
anno  regni  nri  tricesimo  quarto  [1542]. 

II 

Record  office.  Patent  Roll  No.  752.  Westminster,  14  April. 
36  Henry  VIII,  1545.  [Grant  of  Charterhouse  to  Sir 
Edward  North.] 

337 


338  APPENDIX    C 

EXTRACT 

Omnibz  ad  quos  etc  saltm.  Cum  nos  p  Iras  nras  patent 
sub  magno  sigillo  nro 

******* 
dederim   et   concessm   diltis   svieutibus   Johi   Bridges  .  .  .  et 
ThomseHale  .  .  .  [here  follows  the  description  of  the  Monastery 
verbatim  as  in  Appendix  C,  1].  .  .  . 

Scietis  quod  nos  in  consideracoe  boni  vi  fidelis  et  acceptabilis 
svicu  dulcis  consiliarii  nri  EDWARD  NORTHE  militis  Cancellarii 
die  cur  nre  Augmentat  etc  etc  Dedimus  et  concessimus  ac 
p  presens  damus  et  conced  pfato  Edwardo  North  reversioe  et 
reversiones  domus  et  sit  ac  pdict  eccli  campanilis  etc  ac  etiam 
tot  pdict  domum  et  situm  nup  domus  Carthus 

Ac  etiam  totum  cimitrm  eidem  situi  adjacen  vulgarit  voc 
The  Charterhowse  Churchyard  [i.e.  Square]  ac  totam  illam 
capellam  nram  in  eodem  construct  vel  edificat. 

Et  etiam  totam  illam  portam  nram  vulgarit  voc  le  Westgate 
[i.e.  of  Charterhouse  Square]  situat  et  existen  in  paroch  Sci 
Sepulchri  in  Suburbiis  die  Civitatis  ac  tram  fundum  et  solum 
ejusdem  portse  ac  omnia  domos  et  scdificia  supeaudem  portam 

edificat. 

****** 

Actotam  illam  portam  vocat  Le  Eastgate  situat  et  existen 
in  parochia  Sci  Botolphi  extra  Aldersgate.  .  .  . 

Ac  etiam  totum  illud  messuagm  ten  et  gardm  cum  ptin 
dicto  Cimitio  adjacen  [i.e.  a  House  in  Charterhouse  Square] 
situat  in  parochia  Sci  Bothi  extra  Aldersgate  London  ac  modo 
vel  nuper  in  tenure  sive  occupac  Dni  Parr  de  Horton  [i.e. 
William  Parr,  brother  of  Queen  Catherine]. 

****** 

Hend  et  tenend  et  gaudend  pdic  domus  etc  etc  pfato 
EDWARD  NORTHE  hered  et  assign  suis  in  ppm  tenend  de  nobis 
hered  et  success  nostr  in  libro  burgagio  diet  civit  nri  London 
et  non  in  Capite.  .  .  . 

[It  is  to  be  observed  that  no  mention  is  made  here  of  any 
mansion  or  messuage  within  the  Monastery,  such  mansion  having 
yet  to  be  constructed.] 

Ill 

Record  office.  May  4th  under  seal  of  Edward  VI.  Sixth 
year  (1553).  [North  to  the  Duke  of  Northumberland. 
Conveyance  of  Charterhouse.] 

EXTRACT 
Totum  domum  et  scitum  nup  domus  sive  Prioratus  ppe 


APPENDIX    C  339 

Civitatem  London  dissolut  ac  *  totam  illam  Mansionem  Sive 
Capitalem  messuagium  [i.e.  the  Mansion  now  built,  afterwards 
called  Howard  House]  ac  omnia  ac  Singula  dosnos  aedificia  et 
struct  nuper  edificat  intra  Scitum  Circum  Circuitum  Ambitum 
Precinctiom  diet  nup  domus  sive  Prioratus  Carthus.  [Here 
follows  a  paragraph  describing  the  various  parts  of  the  Mansion 
within  the  Monastery.] 

****** 

IV 

Record  office.  Patent  Roll  871.  October  23.  1  Mary  1553 
[The  grant  of  Charterhouse  back  from  the  Queen  to  North 
after  the  execution  of  the  Duke  of  Northumberland]. 

The  Queen  to  whom  etc  greeting.  Know  ye  that  we  in 
consideration  of  the  good  true  faithful  and  acceptable  services 
which  our  dear  servant  Edwart  North  Knt  multiplied,  offered, 
and  performed  etc  .  .  .  [Here  follows  the  description  of  the 
Monastery  as  in  the  gift  of  Henry  VIII  to  North,  1845  ;  see 
Appendix  C,  11.] 

All  which  and  singular  the  premises  to  our  hands  by  the 
attainder  of  John  formerly  Duke  of  Northumberland  of  High 
Treason  attainted  have  come  and  in  our  hands  by  reason  of  the 
said  treason  now  remain.  .  .  .  [The  rest  follows  the  grant  of 
Henry  VIII  in  1545,  q.v.] 

V 

Lord  North  to  Thomas  Howard,  4th  Duke  of  Norfolk.  [The 
transfer  by  which  the  Mansion  became,  in  1565,  Howard 
House.]  Charterhouse  Muniment  Room.  The  document 
need  only  be  quoted  in  part  to  show  that  the  words  "  Capi- 
talem messuagium  meum  et  domum  mansionalem  "  again 
occur,  proving  that  Lord  North  transferred  to  Norfolk 
a  Mansion  already  built  within  the  dissolved  Monastery. 

Totum  illud  Scitum  et  capitalem  messuagium  meum  et 
domum  Mansionalem  vulgariter  vocatam  Le  Charterhowse  in 
Comitatu  Middlesex  prope  civitatem  London  parcellam  scitus 
ct  domus  kuper  Prioratus  sive  Monasterii  Carthusiani  vulgariter 
vocat  Le  Charterhowse  nere  London.  Ac  omnia  et  singula 
sedificia  cellaria  structuras  solaria  pomaria  stagna  gardina 
portas  Crofta  inclausata  parietes  ac  cetera  hereditamenta 
qusecunque.  Ac  omnia  alia  domus  aedificia  structuras  a  que- 
ductus  pipas  plumbas  et  alia  cujusque  generis  etc  etc  .  .  . 

*  A  brief  portion  only  is  quoted  for  the  sake  of  showing  that  the 
words  "  totam  illam  mansionem  sive  capitalem  mansionem,"  i.e. 
the  new  Mansion  within  the  Monastery  appears  for  the  first  time. 
The  rest  of  the  conveyance  is  practically  the  same  as  in  Henry  VIII 
to  North  in  1545.  Appendix  C,  ii. 


340  APPENDIX    C 


VI 

Record  office.  Exchequer  K.R.  miscell.  Books  No.  45  :  4  April, 
32  Elizabeth  1590.  [The  Commissioners'  Survey  on  Philip 
Earl  of  ArundePs  Attainder.]  The  document  is  full  of 
detail  which  bears  upon  the  topography  of  Charterhouse  in 
the  Mansion  period.  Portions  only  are  quoted. 
****** 

A  parcel  of  land  or  ground  commonly  called  Charterhouse 
Churchyard  with  a  chapel  built  thereon  and  with  24  trees 
growing  on  said  ground  containing  by  estimation  2  acres  lying 
and  being  in  the  Parish  of  St.  Sepulchre  in  Co  Middx  in  the 
suburbs  of  the  City  of  London. 

PER  ANNUM  (no  value  given). 

A  certain  yard  called  the  Outer  Court  adjacent  to  said  parcel 
of  land  called  the  Charterhouse  Churchyard  with  buildings  on 
each  side  of  the  Great  door  or  first  entrance  [appears  to  be  the 
Entrance  Court]  by  said  parcel  called  Charterhouse  Churchyard 
in  the  said  yard. 

PEE  ANNUM  26.8.0. 

A  Yard  called  the  Granary  Yard  with  divers  edifices  built 
above  together  lying  on  the  west  side  of  the  said  outer  court 
[apparently  the  properties  covered  by  Charterhouse  Hotel, 
Mews,  etc.]. 

PER  ANNUM  66.8.0. 

A  garden  called  the  Granary  Garden  enclosed  by  a  brick 
wall  lying  on  the  north  part  of  the  Granary  Yard. 

PER  ANNUM  6.8.0. 

A  Capital  Messuage  or  House  called  Charterhouse  with 
2  internal  yards  called  Courts  and  with  a  square  garden  with 
small  fountain  in  the  middle  of  the  same  and  also  with  2  ambu- 
latories below  and  above  called  the  Terrace,  besides  a  tennis 
court  and  another  smaller  garden  on  the  West  part  of  said  ambu- 
latories called  the  Terrace  with  separate  houses  and  edifices 
surrounding  said  yards  and  gardens  constructions  and  edifices 
and  also  with  2  yards  one  of  quadrangular  and  the  other  of 
triangular  form  adjoining  said  edifices  on  South. 

PER  ANNUM  58.6.8. 

A  parcell  of  ground  called  the  Backyard  divided  into  2 
yards  one  larger  one  smaller  with  stables  and  buildings  built 
thereon  with  a  pond  [the  Monastery  pond.  The  north  wing  of 


APPENDIX    C  341 

pensioners'  court  is  built  across  the  site  of  it]  at  the  north  end 
of  the  longer  yard.  Which  said  yard  lying  in  the  West  as  well 
as  the  vacant  piece  of  land  there  and  the  Tennis  Court  as  well 
as  Certain  Edifices  on  the  West  side  of  said  small  garden  and 
yard  adjoining. 

PER  ANNUM  20. 

A  vacant  piece  of  land  lying  in  breadth  between  the  garden 
in  tenure  of  Lord  North  and  the  said  large  fountain  garden  *  and 
the  end  of  terrace  on  the  South  and  the  large  orchard  on  the 
North  abutting  on  the  East  common  road  leading  from  Alders- 
gate  to  Islington  and  on  the  west  on  the  backyard  above 
specified  [the  Monks'  wilderness,  afterwards  "  Under  Green  " 
of  the  School,  now  (1914)  covered  with  buildings]. 

PER  ANNUM  6/8. 

A  garden  or  orchard  with  a  small  house  built  thereon 
containing  in  it  cisterns  and  lead  pipes  for  distributing  water 
brought  there  by  pipes  to  the  "  Scaturigium  "  in  the  several 
offices  of  the  Capital  messuage  lying  between  the  said  vacant 
piece  of  land  on  the  South  part  the  great  brick  wall  on  the  North 
part  abutting  westerly  in  the  gardens  with  a  pond  there  [this 
pond  was  at  the  N.E.  angle  formed  by  Wilderness  Row  and 
Goswell  Street]. 

PER  ANNUM  26/8. 

[Here  follow  details  of  various  properties,  including  the  Bowl- 
ing Alley,  the  resort  of  evill-disposed  persons  set  up  by  John 
Syncleere  on  the  west  side  of  the  Square.  Also  the  details 
of  various  Quills  of  water  from  the  great  fountain  of  Howard 
House  to  houses  in  the  Square]. 

****** 

The  jury  find  that  John  Syncleere  holdeth  by  a  patent  made 
during  his  lyfe  by  Thomas  late  Duke  of  Norfolk  date  12  August 
11  of  the  Queen's  majestic  (1569)  that  now  is  the  keeping  of  the 
Great  House  called  Howard  House  alias  Charterhouse  late  the 
house  of  Edward  Lord  North  with  all  the  Gardens  etc  etc 
[shows  that  North  had  already  built  a  mansion  which  he  trans- 
ferred to  Norfolk]. 

The  remaining  clause  sets  forth  the  finding  of  the  jury  as 
to  the  attainder  of  Phillip  late  Erie  of  Arrundell,  the  forfeiture 
of  his  possessions,  rents,  and  revenues  in  Charterhouse  to  the 
Crown.  Also  the  issue  of  the  said  nobleman,  Elizabeth  aged  6 
and  Thomas  aged  4. 

*  Once  the  great  cloister  with  central  conduit. 


342  APPENDIX    C 


VII 

Record  office.  Land  Revenue  Enrolments  vol.  45  fol.  B18. 
Patent  Roll  No  1564.  29  October  43  Elizabeth  1601. 
[Grant  of  Charterhouse  to  Lord  Thomas  Howard,  Baron 
of  Walden  [Earl  of  Suffolk.]] 

EXTRACT 

The  Grant  first  sets  forth  the  attainder  of  Norfolk  and 
Arundel. 

****** 

For  and  in  consideration  of  the  last  will  of  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk  and  also  for  the  natural  and  paternal  love  which  said 
Duke  then  bore  for  his  children  viz  Philip  then  Earl  of  Surrey 
son  and  heir  apparent  of  the  said  Duke  by  his  wife  Mary 
daughter  and  coheir  of  said  Earl  of  Arundel  and  Lord  Thomas 
Howard,  and  Lord  William  Howard,  his  younger  son,  and  also 
Lady  Margaret  his  daughter  by  his  wife  Margaret  daughter 
and  one  of  the  heirs  of  Thomas  Audley  of  Walden  dead. 

And  in  consideration  etc  and  for  the  continuation  of  the 
possessions  in  the  blood  of  the  said  Duke  he  the  said  Duke 
granted  to  said  Earls  of  Pembroke  Arundel  and  Leicester  and 
William  Lord  Howard  of  Effingham  and  William  Cecil  and 
William  Cordell  Knt  that  they  should  be  seized  of  the  manors 
of  [here  follow  the  names  of  many  manors  in  Norfolk]  and  of 
and  in  all  that  Capital  Messuage  then  commonly  called  or  known 
by  the  name  of  Howard  House  otherwise  the  late  dissolved 
Charterhouse  beside  Smithfield  in  C°.  Middx  with  all  its  appur- 
tenances and  of  and  in  an  orchard  and  garden  to  same  belonging. 

And  of  all  that  parcel  of  land  near  called  Pardon  Church- 
yard [still  the  property  of  Charterhouse  1914]  and  of  2  closes 
adjacent  there-to  called  White  Webech  [Whit well  Beech,  still 
the  property  of  Charterhouse,  1914]  in  the  C°  Middx  [other 
properties  also  mentioned]. 

To  the  use  of  said  Duke  and  after  to  the  use  of  such  as  by 
his  will  he  should  direct. 

And  whereas  the  said  Duke  was  attainted  for  High  Treason 
(1572)  and  whereas  afterwards  Philip  Earl  of  Surrey  and  after- 
wards Earl  of  Arundel  was  likewise  attainted  (1589)  and  whereas 
said  Thomas  Lord  Howard  Baron  of  Walden  levied  a  Fine  to 
us  and  our  successor  of  all  said  lands  (see  Feet  of  Fines  this 
year  1601)  know  ye  that  for  the  faithful  services  etc  of  said 
Thomas  Lord  Howard  Baron  of  Walden  we  have  granted  him 
by  these  presents  .  .  .  the  said  Capital  Messuage  called  Howard 


APPENDIX   C  343 

House  als  Charterhouse  the  orchard  and  garden  etc  Pardon 
Churchyard  and  White  Welbech. 

To  him  and  his  heirs  for  ever  paying  us  yearly 

822.0.0  in  two  annual 
equal  portions. 

[This  is  the  absolute  grant  to  Lord  Thomas  Howard,  who, 
from  1595-1601,  had  held  it  only  in  fee-farm.] 

VIII 

Record  office.  Patent  Roll  No.  1621  m.  30.  James  I.  Date 
Feb.  1,  1603.  [Grant  of  Charterhouse  to  Lord  Thomas 
Howard,  Earl  of  Suffolk.] 

EXTRACT 

A  similar  document,  Feb.  23,  1603.  The  document  is  a 
re-affirmation  of  James  in  the  first  year  of  his  reign  of  the 
grant  by  Elizabeth.  It  sets  forth  again  all  the  properties  as 
mentioned  in  that  grant  and  concludes  "  in  as  ample  and  full 
a  way  as  his  ancestors  or  progenitors  Thomas  Duke  of  Norfolk 
and  Philip  Earl  of  Arundel  had  the  same." 

IX 

Record  office.  Patents  Roll  No.  1934.  No.  6.  Abstract  22  June, 
9  James  I,  1611.  [Grant  to  Thomas  Sutton  to  found  a 
Hospital  and  School  at  the  Charterhouse  which  he  had 
lately  bought  from  Thomas  Earl  of  Suffolk.] 

EXTRACT 

The  letters  patent  are  of  great  length  and  there  is  much 
reiteration.  They  are  printed  in  full  in  Charterhouse,  Past 
and  Present  (Dr.  Haig  Brown).  A  resume  only  is  here  given 
of  the  most  important  clauses. 

The  deed  sanctions  the  transfer  of  the  proposed  Hospital 
from  Hallingbury  to  a  great  and  large  mansion  house  commonly 
called  the  late  dissolved  Charterhouse  beside  Smithfield  with 
license  to  found  an  Hospitall  and  free  School.  It  gives  power  to 
incorporate  a  body  of  Governors  who  are  to  have  perpetual 
succession  for  ever  in  fact  deed  and  name.  The  hospital!, 
house,  or  place  of  abiding  to  be  for  the  finding  Sustentation  and 
relief  of  poore  aged  maimed  needy  or  impotent  people  .  .  .  the 
Free  School  for  the  instructing  teaching  maintenance  and  educa- 
tion of  poor  children  or  scholars.  The  nomination  of  such  persons 
to  be  in  the  hands  of  Thomas  Sutton  during  his  life  time  and 
of  the  Governors  after  his  death.  The  list  of  the  first  Governors 


344  APPENDIX    C 

is  given.  The  foundation  to  be  known  as  the  Hospital  of 
King  James  founded  in  Charter-house  within  the  County  of 
Middlesex  at  the  humble  petition  and  only  costs  and  charges 
of  Thomas  Sutton  Esquire.  The  Founder  to  name,  during  his 
life,  the  Master,  Preacher,  Schoolmaster,  Usher,  Members 
officer  and  officers  of  the  Hospital.  The  Governors  to  do  the 
same  after  his  death,  with  complete  power  to  displace  any 
or  all  of  the  said  officers,  poor  people,  scholars,  members  etc. 
The  place  to  be  extra-diocesan  [as  it  remains  to  this  day  1914]. 
The  list  of  estates  with  which  the  Hospital  is  endowed  is  given — 
to  wit.  Charterhouse  itself  with  all  the  belongings  as  purchased 
from  Thomas  Earl  of  Suffolk.  The  manors  and  lordships  of 
Southminster,  [Cold]  Norton,  Little  Hallingbury,  alias  Halling- 
bury  Bouchers  and  Much  Stambridge  in  the  County  of  Essex. 
Bustingthorpe  alias  Buslingthorp  and  Dunnesby  in  the  County 
of  Lincoln.  Salthorp  alias  Saltrop  alias  Halthrop,  Chilton  and 
Blachgrove  in  the  County  of  Wilts.  Appurtenances  of  Blach- 
grove  in  Wroughton.  The  manor  of  Missenden  in  Wroughton, 
Lydyerde  and  Tregose  :  the  manner  of  Elcombe  and  Parke, 
called  Elcombe  Parke :  the  manner  of  Wattlescote,  alias 
Wiglescete,  alias  Wigelscote.  The  Manner  of  Westcote  alias 
Wescete  :  the  Manner  of  Uffcote  :  his  lands  and  farms  in 
Broadhinton  :  all  in  the  County  of  Wilts  :  The  Manners  of 
Campes  alias  Castle  Campes  :  and  of  Balsham  in  Cambs  : 
his  messuages  and  lands  in  Hackney  and  Tottenham  in  Middle- 
sex (except  his  manners  of  Littlebury  and  Hadstoche  in  Essex). 
Especial  provision  is  made  that  in  the  filling  of  advowsons 
left  by  him  the  Governors  shall  give  preference  if  possible  to 
Scholars  Educated  on  his  Foundation. 

X 

The  will  of  Thomas  Sutton  [extracts]. 

The  will  is  printed  in  full  by  Hearne,  Bearcroft,  Smythe, 
and  Haig  Brown.  The  legacies  amount  to  £12,110  17*.  Sd., 
the  residue  of  all  his  goods,  chattels,  and  possessions  being  left 
to  his  Foundation.  A  selection  only  of  the  legacies  is  here 
given. 

10£  each  to  the  children  of  Richard  Coxe,  late  Bishop  of 
Ely  (once  Headmaster  of  Eton). 

100£  to  the  children  of  Eleanor  wife  of  Robert  Aske  of 
Aughton,  Yorks. 

100  marks  to  the  poor  of  Berwick-on-Tweed. 

10£  to  the  poor  of  Stoke  Newington. 

40£  to  Mr.  Gray,  dwelling  in  Yorkshire,  sometime  servant 
to  Ambrose  Earl  of  Warwick,  or  to  his  Children. 

10£  to  the  Children  of  Henry  Tutty  late  gunner  in  Berwick. 


APPENDIX   C  345 

300£  to  [his  nephew]  Simon  Baxter  or  to  his  children. 

500  marks  to  Francis  Baxter  or  to  his  children. 

£13  6s.  8d.  to  each  of  his  men  servants  and  his  cook.  5  marks 
to  each  maid  and  10£  to  the  Children  of  Reynold  Tomps  his 
late  servant. 

100.£  to  the  Fishermen  of  Ostend. 

26.  13.  4  to  the  mending  of  the  roads  between  Islington  and 
Newington. 

100£  to  the  mending  of  Walden  Lane  between  Ashden  and 
Walden  hi  Essex. 

66£  13.  4  to  the  amending  the  road  between  Walden  and 
Great  Lynton  in  Cambs. 

60£  to  the  amending  of  Horseheath  Lane  in  Cambs. 

100£  to  the  amending  of  the  bridges  and  highways  between 
Southminster  and  Maldon  in  Essex. 

30£  (remission  of  a  debt)  to  Alderman  Robert  Dudley  of 
Newcastle-on-Tyne. 

1000£  to  the  Chamber  of  the  city  of  London  for  the  purpose 
of  lending  annually  to  ten  young  men  free  of  interest  for  use 
in  their  trade,  to  be  chosen  by  the  Lord  Mayor  and  Aldermen 
and  the  Dean  of  St.  Pauls. 

2000  marks  to  Sir  Francis  Popham  knt  husband  of  his 
stepdaughter  Ann  Dudley  (with  special  reserves  and  explana- 
tions). 

200£  to  Amy  Popham  on  her  marriage,  or  reaching  the  age 
of  18. 

On  like  condition  100£  apiece  to  Francis,  Mary,  Elizabeth 
Jane  and  Ann,  the  five  daughters  of  his  stepdaughter  Lady 
Ann  Popham  (with  important  reserves  conditions  and  explana- 
tions). 

To  Amy  Popham  if  it  please  God  she  live  to  keep  house, 
3  feather  beds,  3  pair  of  Holland  Sheets  with  the  bolsters  to 
them  and  so  many  hangings  of  tapestry  as  furnish  her  a  bed- 
chamber. 

He  appoints  Richard  Sutton  of  London  Esquire  and  John 
Law  one  of  the  Procurators  of  Arches  his  Executors. 

He  appoints  George  Abbott  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
overseer  of  his  will  with  a  legacy  of  40£  or  a  piece  of  plate  of 
that  value  at  his  choice. 

He  appoints  Launcelot  Andrews,  King's  Almoner  his  other 
overseer  with  a  legacy  of  20£  or  a  piece  of  plate  of  equal  value. 

He  inserts  a  clause  by  which  any  person  who  impugns 
or  contests  the  will,  shall  forfeit  any  legacy  or  advantage  from  it. 

100£  to  Richard  Sutton  (his  executor). 

20£  to  John  Hutton,  vicar  of  Littlebury  (the  first  Master 
of  Charterhouse). 

10£  to  the  poor  of  Elcomb. 


346  APPENDIX   C 

He  bequeaths  the  Manors  of  Littlebury  and  Hadstock 
to  Lord  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Suffolk,  for  a  consideration 
of  10,000£.  If  the  bequest  is  declined,  the  manors  to  be  sold  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Hospital. 

To  Sir  Henry  Hubberd  (Hobart)  the  Attorney  General  a 
piece  of  plate  value  10£ :  To  Mr  Locksmith  his  clerk  the  sum 
of  ten  pounds. 

40£  to  Jeffery  Nightingale  Esq.  (one  of  the  Governors). 

100  marks  to  his  Cousin  William  Stapleton  son  of  Sir 
Richard  Stapleton,  Knt. 

10£  to  Thomas  Brown  (one  of  the  Governors)  to  make  him  a 
ring. 

200£  to  John  Law  (his  executor)  one  of  the  Procurators  of 
the  Arches. 

20£  to  the  poor  of  Hadstock. 

20£  to  the  poor  of  Littlebury  and  of  Balsham. 

20£  to  buy  a  bell  for  Balsham  Steeple. 

20£  to  the  poor  of  Southminster. 

20£  to  the  poor  of  Little  Hallingbury. 

20£  to  the  poor  of  Dunsby. 

200£  to  the  poor  prisoners  of  Ludgate,  Newgate,  the  two 
Compters  in  London,  the  Kings  Bench  and  the  Marshalsea. 

500  marks  to  the  Corporation  of  Jesus  College  Cambridge. 

500  marks  to  the  Corporation  of  Magdalen  College  Cambridge. 

5000£  to  the  building  of  his  intended  hospital,  chappel  and 
school  house,  if  he  does  not  live  to  see  it  performed  in  his  life- 
time. 

Profits  arising  from  his  interest  in  land  at  Cottingham  Yorks 
to  the  poor  of  Beverley :  and  the  profits  from  the  parsonage 
of  Glentham  Lincoln  to  the  poor  of  Lincoln. 

1000£  to  the  treasury  of  his  intended  Hospital  to  begin  their 
stock. 

10£  to  the  poor  of  Hacknew. 

To  Sir  Edward  Phillips  Master  of  the  Rolls  a  piece  of  plate 
value  10£. 

To  Sir  James  Altham,  one  of  the  Barons  of  the  exchequer 
a  piece  of  plate  value  20£. 

400£  to  the  Earl  of  Suffolk. 

Signed  by  the  Testator  the  28th  November  1611  in  presence 
of  John  Law,  Leonard  Houghton,  Alexander  Longworth, 
Thomas  Hall,  Richard  Pearce  (his  mark)  Thomas  Johnson  (his 
mark).  Idem  recognitum  per  testatorem  Coram  Jo,  Crooke 
quarto  Decembus  1611  recognit  to  be  the  testator's  last  will. 
Before  me  Henry  Thoresby. 


APPENDIX   C  347 


XI 

Extract  from  copy  of  document  in  Charterhouse  Muniment 
Room  headed,  "  By  the  charge  and  receipts  of  Sir  Richard  Sutton 
the  Surviving  Executor  of  Mr  Sutton  his  personal  estate  stood 
thus  "  :— 

****** 

Item.  In  gifts  to  Sir  Francis  Bacon  Ld  Chancellor  and  his 
officers  (including  a  present  of  a  piece  of  plate  to  Sir  Henry 
Mountaine  Ld  Chief  Justice  value  £20  18.  0  in  the  suit  of  Sir 
Francis  Popham  in  Chancery  632.  19.  6. 

This  entry  refers  to  a  Suit  in  Chancery  brought  in  Feb.  1616 
by  Sir  Francis  Popham  (husband  of  Ann,  Sutton's  stepdaughter) 
against  Sutton's  executors,  claiming  the  lands  at  Tottenham. 
The  Suit  was  dismissed  on  July  6,  1618.  At  the  time  of  its 
commencement  Bacon  was  Attorney- General.  He  became 
Lord  Keeper,  March  7, 1617,  and  Lord  Chancellor,  July  12, 1618. 

XII 

THE  FOUNDER'S  TOMB 

The  subjoined  particulars  of  the  Founder's  Tomb,  bearing 
date  1613,  are  attached  to  a  covenant  undertaking  to  do  the 
work  for  £350.  The  signatures  are  Nicholas  Johnson  (Jansen) 
alias  Garrett  of  Southwarke,  Tomb-maker,  and  Edmund  Kines- 
man  of  London,  Citizen  and  Freeman. 

For  the  enrichinge  within  the  Arch         .          .          .  6.0.0 

For  the  two  captaines  sittinge  *     .         .         .         .  10  .  0  .  0 

For  the  four  Capitalls 10  .  0  .  0 

For  his  picture  and  crest  f  att  his  feete  .          .  10  .  0  .  0 

For  the  two  boys  Labour  and  Rest         .          .          .  6.0.0 

For  the  two  pellasters  carved  three  sides  apiece       .  6  .  0.   0 

For  the  three  pictures,  J  Faith,  Hope  and  Charitie   .  15  .  0  .  0 

For  the  Armes 6.0.0 

For  the  two  Capitalls  .          .          .          .          .          .  3.0.0 

For  the  storye  §  over  the  Cornishe           .         .          .  10  .  0  .  0 

For  enrichinge  under  the  Cornishe           .          .          .  3.0.0 

For  the  two  death's  heads  ||  and  one  cherubims  head  5.0.0 

*  The  above  must  be  regarded  as  a  previous  estimate,  not  as  an 
account,  seeing  that  many  details  have  evidently  been  altered  in  the 
execution.  The  captaines — bearers — are  standing,  not  sitting. 

t  There  is  no  crest  at  the  foot  of  the  Founder's  figure. 

j  Pictures  =  coloured  statues. 

§  The  storye  is  the  bas  relief  of  the  preacher  and  the  brothers. 

||  This  part  of  the  design  has  been  altered.  There  is  one  death's 
head  between  two  figures  of  life  and  time. 


348  APPENDIX    C 

For  roses  and  other  flowers  and  enrichinge  .  .  6.0.0 

For  paynting  and  gildinge  .  .  .  .  .  20  .  0  .  0 
For  carryinge  the  worke,  and  settinge  with  cramps  of 

iron,  lyne,  and  bricks  .  .  .  .  .  10  .  0  .  0 

For  working  of  the  masonry  in  alablaster  .  .  50  .  0  .  0 

For  working  the  six  columnes  .  .  .  .  15  .  0  .  0 

For  sawing  the  hard  stone  .  .  .  .  .  10  .  0  .  0 

For  working  and  pollishinge  five  ranee  pellasters  .  10  .  0  .  0 

For  working  and  pollishinge  the  lover  of  ranee  .  8.0.0 
For  workinge,  rubbinge,  and  pollishinge  all  the 

tables  both  of  ranee  *  and  touch  f  •  .  .  10  .  0  .  0 

For  sixty  foote  of  ranee  at  10'  a  foote  .  .  .  30  .  0  .  0 

For  eighty  foote  of  touch  .  .  .  .  .  40  .  0  .  0 
For  nine  loads  of  alablaster  at  6£  a  loade  with  the 

carryage.          .          .          .          .          .          .          .  54  .  0  .  0 

For  workinge  and  pollishinge  the  ledger  .  .  10  .  0  .  0 

For  thirty  foote  of  pace  at  2 .  6  a  foote  .  .  3.15.0 

366  . 15  .  0 

The  following  is  the  receipt  of  Jansen  and  Stone  in  Sir 
John  Soanes'  museum  : — 

"  In  May  1615  Mr  Janson  in  Southwark  and  I  did  set  up 
a  tombe  for  Mr  Sottone  at  Charter  Hous  for  the  wich  we  had 
400£  well  payed  but  the  letell  monement  of  Mr  Lawes  was 
included  the  wich  I  mad  and  all  the  carven  work  of  Mr  Button's 
Tombe." 

Another  receipt,  signed  by  Nicholas  Johnson,  Edmund 
Kinesman,  and  Nicholas  Stone,  date  Nov.  24,  1615,  is 
quoted  at  full  length  in  Dr.  Haig  Brown's  Charterhouse,  Past  and 
Present. 

The  original  design  of  the  Founder's  figure  was  in  full 
armour,  for  which  the  drawing  exists  in  the  Muniment  Room. 

*  Bance  =  yellow  marble.  f  Touch  =  black  marble. 


APPENDIX  D 


Masters  of  Button's  Hospital  from  the  date  of  the  Foundation 
to  the  present  time  : — 

1.  Rev  John  Hulton,  M.A.,  1611. 

2.  Rev.  Andrew  Perne,  M.A.,  1614. 

3.  Rev.  Peter  Hooker,  B.D.,  1615. 

4.  Francis  Beaumont,  Esq.,  1617. 

5.  Rev.  Sir  Robert  Dallington,  M.A.,  1624. 

6.  George  Garrard,  Esq.,  M.A.,  1627. 

7.  Edward  Cressett,  Esq.,  1650. 

8.  Sir  Ralph  Sydenham,  1660. 

9.  Martin  Clifford,  Esq.,  1671. 

10.  Hon.  William  Erskine,  1677. 

11.  Rev.  Thomas  Burnet,  B.D.,  1685. 

12.  Rev.  John  King,  D.D.,  1715. 

13.  Nicholas  Mann,  Esq.,  1737. 

14.  Rev.  Philip  Bearcroft,  D.D.,  1753. 

15.  Rev.  Samuel  Salter,  D.D.,  1761. 

16.  Rev.  William  Ramsden,  D.D.,  1778. 

17.  Rev.  Philip  Fisher,  D.D.,  1804. 

18.  Yen.  Archdeacon  William  Hale  Hale,  M.A.,  1842. 

19.  Rev.  George  Currey,  D.D.,  1872. 

20.  Rev.  Richard  Elwyn,  M.A.,  1885. 

21.  Rev.  William  Haig  Brown,  LL.D.,  1897. 

22.  Rev.  George  Edward  Jelf,  D.D.,  1907. 

23.  Rev.  Gerald  Stanley  Davies,  M.A.,  1908. 

II 

Preachers  of  Sutton's  Hospital  from  the  date  of  the  Founda- 
tion : — 

1.  Mr.  Hartneys,  1613. 

2.  Anthony  Parker,  1616,  expelled. 

3.  William  Ford,  B.D.,  1618,  removed,  being  a  married  man. 

349  2  A 


350  APPENDIX   D 

4.  Percival  Burrell,  M.A.,  1619. 

5.  William  Middleton,  A.M.,  1628. 

6.  *  Daniel  Toutville,  M.A.,  1630. 
[7A.  *  Thomas  Foxeley.] 

7B.  Peter  Clarke,  M.A.,  1643. 

8.  William  Adderley,  M.A.,  1645,  during  pleasure. 

9.  f  George  Griffith,  M.A.,  with  a  patent  for  life. 

10.  Timothy  Shircross,  D.D.,  1661. 

11.  John  Patrick,  D.D.,  1671. 

12.  John  King,  D.D.,  1695. 

13.  Emanuel  Langford,  D.D.,  1715. 

14.  Philip  Bearcroft,  D.D.,  1724. 

15.  Samuel  Salter,  D.D.,  1754. 

16.  John  Nichols,  D.D.,  1761. 

17.  Thomas  Sanisbury,  A.M.,  1774. 

18.  William  Lloyd,  M.A.,  1787. 

19.  Wilfred  Clarke,  M.A.,  1809. 

20.  James  Currey,  M.A.,  1812. 

21.  William  Hale  Hale,  M.A.,  1823. 

22.  Henry  Burgess  Whitaker  Churton,  M.A.,  1842, 

23.  Folliott  Baugh,  M.A.,  1844. 

24.  George  Currey,  D.D.,  1849. 

25.  Henry  Vincent  Le-Bas,  M.A.,  1871. 

26.  Wm.  Francis  John  Romanis,  M.A.,  1910. 

27.  Alexander  Ramsbotham,  M.A.,  1912. 


Ill 

Schoolmasters  (Headmasters)  since  the  Foundation  : — 

1.  Nicholas  Grey,  1614. 

2.  Robert  Grey,  1624. 

3.  William  Middleton,  M.A.,  1626. 

4.  JRobert  Brooke,  1628. 

5.  Samuel  Wilson,  1643. 

6.  John  Boncle  or  Bunkley,  1651. 

*  In  1642  Daniel  Toutville  was  seqiiestered  by  Parliament, 
who  appointed  a  Godly  preacher,  one  Thomas  Foxeley,  in  his  place. 
The  Governors  refused  to  confirm  the  appointment  because  Foxeley 
was  married  :  "  We  houlding  yt  most  juste  to  keepe  and  maintain 
the  ordinances  of  this  House  made  with  soe  great  judgement :  and 
the  Executors  of  the  Founder  being  parties  thereto  whoo  knew  his 
intent  and  direclon." 

t  George  Griffith  was  married,  and  his  wife  was  allowed  to  live 
in  Charterhouse.  The  fact  marks  the  change  which  had  taken  place 
in  the  Assembly  of  Governors. 

J  Robert  Brooke  was  expelled  by  an  order  of  Parliament.  He 
was  allowed  to  return  and  occupy  rooms  in  Charterhouse  at  the 
Restoration. 


APPENDIX    D  351 

7.  Norris  Wood,  1654. 

8.  Thomas  Watson,  1662. 

9.  Thomas  Walker,  LL.D.,  1679. 

10.  Andrew  Tooke,  A.M.,  1728. 

11.  James  Hotchkis,  1731. 

12.  Lewis  Crusius,  D.D.,  1748. 

13.  Samuel  Berdmore,  D.D.,  1769. 

14.  Matthew  Raine,  D.D.,  1791. 

15.  John  Russell,  D.D.,  1811. 

16.  Augustus  Page  Saunders,  D.D.,  1832 

17.  Edward  Elder,  D.D.,  1853. 

18.  Richard  Elwyn,  M.A.,  1858. 

19.  William  Haig  Brown,  LL.D.,  1863. 

20.  Gerald  Henry  Rendall,  LL.D.,  1897 

21.  Frank  Fletcher,  M.A.,  1911. 

IV 

Registrars  since  the  Foundation  : — 

1.  Thomas  Hay  ward,  1612. 

2.  Samuel  Martyn,  1627. 

3.  John  Brent,  1643,  removed. 

4.  Edward  Cressett,  1656. 

5.  John  Holled,  1651. 

6.  William  Taylour,  1654, 

7.  William  Massey,  1666. 

8.  Spelman,  1669. 

9.  Lightfoot,  1674. 

10.  William  Hempson,  1699. 

11.  Conway  Whithorn,  1739. 

12.  Thomas  Melmoth,  1741. 

13.  Henry  Sayer,  1767. 

14.  Thomas  Ryder,  1789. 

15.  Thomas  Gatty,  1835. 

16.  Archibald  Keightley,  1838. 

17.  Harry  Wilmot  Lee,  1877. 

18.  Arthur  Melmoth  Walters,  1910. 

V 

List  of  Governors  of  Sutton's  Hospital  since  the  Foundation. 

[All  the  Sovereigns  of  England  with  their  Consorts,  also 
Oliver  Cromwell,  Protector,  have  been  Governors  of  Charter- 
house, but  (except  the  Protector)  have  taken  no  part  in  the 
administration.  They  nominated  both  Brothers  and  Scholars 
up  to  1872,  and  Brothers  only  since  that  date.] 


•s 


352  APPENDIX    D 

1611  /George  Abbott,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
/  Thomas,  Lord  Ellesmere,  Lord  Chancellor. 

Robert,  Earl  of  Salisbury. 

John  King,  Bishop  of  London. 

Launcelot  Andrews,  Bishop  of  Ely. 

Sir  Edward  Coke,  Knight,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England. 

Sir  Thomas  Foster,  Knight. 

Sir  Henry  Hobart,   Knight  and   Baronet,   Lord  Chief 

Justice  of  Common  Pleas. 
John  Overall,  D.D.,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's. 
George  Montaigne,  Dean  of  Westminster. 
Henry  Thursby,  Esq. 
Geoffrey  Nightingale,  Esq. 
Richard  Sutton,  Esq. 
John  Lawe,  Esq. 
\  Thomas  Browne,  Esq. 
\Rev.  John  Hutton,  M.A.,  Master  of  Charterhouse. 

1612  Henry  Earl  of  Northampton. 

Sir  James  Altham,  Knight,  one  of  the  Barons  of  the 
Exchequer. 

1614  William  Earl  of  Pembroke. 

Rev.  Andrew  Perne,  M.A.  (Master). 
William  Byrde,  D.C.L. 

1615  Lewis  Proud,  Esq. 

Rev.  Peter  Hooker,  B.D.  (Master). 

1616  Edward  Earl  of  Worcester. 

1617  Sir  Francis  Moore,  Knight. 
Sir  John  Doddridge,  Knight. 
Francis  Beaumont,  Esq.  (Master). 

1619     Francis,  Lord  Verulam,  Lord  Chancellor. 

Valentine  Cary,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Westminster,  Bishop  of 

St.  Asaph. 

1621     John  Williams,  D.D.,  Dean   of  St.   Paul's ;  afterwards 
Bishop  of  Lincoln,  Lord  Keeper,  Archbishop  of  York. 
Sir  Henry  Montagu,  Viscount  Maude ville. 
Sir  Thomas  Coventry,  Knight. 

1624  Robert  Dallington,  Clerk  (Master). 
Sir  Henry  Martyn,  Knight. 

1625  Sir    Robert    Heath,    Knight,    afterwards    Lord    Chief 

Justice  of  England. 

1626  John  Donne,  D.D.,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's. 
John  Buckeridge,  Bishop  of  Rochester. 

1628     Philip,  Earl  of  Montgomery. 

Sir   Ranulph    Crewe,    Knight,    Lord   Chief    Justice  of 

England. 

William    Laud,  Bishop   of   London ;    afterwards   Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury. 


APPENDIX   D  353 

1630  Richard  Lord  Weston. 

Thomas  Winiffe,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Westminster. 
Dudley  Viscount  Dorchester. 

1631  Sir  Thomas  Edmonds,  Knight. 

1632  Henry  Earl  of  Holland. 

1633  William  Juxon,  Bishop  of  London;   afterwards  Arch- 

bishop of  Canterbury. 

1634  Matthew  Wren,  D.D.,  Dean  of  St.   Paul's ;  afterwards 

Bishop  of  Ely. 

Edward    Littleton,  Esq. ;    afterwards    Lord    Littleton, 
Lord  Keeper. 

1635  Sir  John  Coke,  Knight. 

1638  George  Garrard,  Esq.  (Master). 

1639  Sir  John  Bankes,  Knight,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  Common 

Pleas. 

1640  Sir  John  Finch,  Knight,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  Common 

Pleas. 

1641  Robert  Earl  of  Warwick. 
Robert  Earl  of  Essex. 

1642  Sir  Rowland  Wandesford,  Knight. 

1643  Algernon  Percy,  Earl  of  Northumberland. 

1644  William  Earl  of  Salisbury. 

1645  Edward  Earl  of  Manchester. 

John  Glynn,  Esq.,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England. 
Oliver  St.  John,  Esq.,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  Common 

Pleas. 

John  Lord  Roberts  of  Truro. 
Edward  Lord  Howard  (of  Escricke). 
Sir  Edmond  Reeve,  Knight. 
John  Selden,  Esq. 
Samuel  Browne,  Esq. 

1646  William  Lenthall,  Esq.  (Speaker  of  the  Long  Parliament). 

1647  Peter  Phesant,  Esq. 

1650  Philip  Lord  Lisle. 

Sir  William  Armyn,  Knight  and  Baronet. 

Sir  Henry  Vane,  Jun.,  Knight. 

Rt.  Hon.  Bulstrode  Whitelocke,  Lord  Keeper. 

Rt.  Hon.  John  Bradshaw. 

Thomas  Lord  Fairfax. 

Edward  Cressett,  Esq.  (Master). 

His  Excellency,  Oliver  Cromwell. 

John  Gordon,  Esq. 

1651  John  Lisle,  Esq. 
Charles  Fleetwood,  Esq. 

1652  Lawrence  Wright,  D.M. 

Sir  Arthur  Hesilrigge,  Baronet. 

1653  Sir  John  Wollaston,  Knight. 


354  APPENDIX   D 

1654     Major-General  Philip  Skippon. 

1656  Rt.  Hon.  Nathaniel  Fiennes. 

1657  Rt.  Hon.  John  Thurloe. 

1658  Lord  Richard  Cromwell. 

1659  Philip  Lord  Jones. 

1660  Edward  Earl  of  Manchester  (for  the  second  time). 
Edward  Lord  Howard  of  Escricke  (for  the  second  time). 
John  Lord  Roberts  of  Truro  (for  the  second  time). 
Samuel  Browne,  Esq.  (for  the  second  time). 
Algernon  Earl  of  Northumberland  (for  the  second  time). 
Sir  Ralph  Sydenham,  Knight  (Master). 

Matthew  Wren,  Bishop  of  Ely  (for  the  second  time). 

1661  Edward  Lord  Hurdon. 
Thomas  Earl  of  Southampton. 
Gilbert  Sheldon,  Bishop  of  London. 

Sir    Orlando    Bridgman,    Knight   and    Baronet,    Lord 
Keeper. 

1662  Anthony    Lord    Ashley;    afterwards    Lord    Chancellor, 

Earl  of  Shaftesbury. 
George  (Monk)  Duke  of  Albemarle. 

1663  George  Morley,  Bishop  of  Winchester. 

1667  Henry  Lord  Arlington. 

Humphrey  Hinchman,  Bishop  of  London. 
Sir   Jeffrey   Palmer,    Knight   and    Baronet,    Attorney- 
General. 

1668  Sir  William  Wylde,  Knight  and  Baronet. 
William  Earl  of  Craven. 

Benjamin  Laney,  Bishop  of  Ely. 

1669  George  Duke  of  Buckingham. 

1670  John  Earl  of  Bridgwater. 

1671  John  Duke  of  Ormonde. 

Martin   Clifford,  Esq.   (Master) ;   "  Buffoon,"  i.e.   Cup- 
bearer to  Charles  II. 

1674  Heneage  Lord  Finch,  Lord  Keeper;  afterwards  Lord 

Chancellor  and  Earl  of  Nottingham. 
James  Duke  of  Monmouth  and  Buccleuch. 
Thomas  Earl  of  Danby,  Prime  Minister. 

1675  Rt.  Hon.  Henry  Coventry. 

John  Dolben,  Bishop  of  Rochester. 
1677     Hon.  William  Erskine  (Master). 

Henry  Compton,  Bishop  of  London. 
William  Sancroft,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

1682  Sir  Francis  North,  Knight ;  afterwards  Lord  Guildford, 

Lord  Chancellor. 

1683  George  Marquis  of  Halifax. 

1684  Henry  Duke  of  Beaufort. 

1685  Rev.  Thomas  Burnet,  LL.D.  (Master). 


APPENDIX   D  355 

Lawrence  Earl  of  Rochester. 

Henry  Earl  of  Clarendon. 

Robert  Earl  of  Ailesbury. 

George,  Lord  Jeffreys,  Lord  Chancellor. 

John  Earl  of  Mulgrave. 

1686  Robert  Earl  of  Sunderland. 
Peter  Mews,  Bishop  of  Winchester. 

1687  George  Earl  of  Berkelye. 
Daniel  Earl  of  Nottingham. 

1688  James  Duke  of  Ormonde. 

1689  Sir  John  Holt,  Knight,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England. 
Charles  (Talbot)  Earl  of  Shrewsbury;  afterwards  Duke 

of  Shrewsbury. 

1693    John  Tillotson,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
1695     Sir  John  Somers,  Knight,  Lord  Keeper ;  afterwards  Lord 

Somers,  Lord  Chancellor. 
Thomas  Tenison,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

1697  Thomas  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery. 
William  Marquis  of  Halifax. 

1698  Sir  George  Treby,  Knight,  Attorney-General. 

1700  Sir  Nathan  Wright,  Lord  Keeper. 
John  Viscount  Lonsdale. 

John  Earl  of  Bridgwater. 

1701  Simon  Patrick,  Bishop  of  Ely. 

Sir  Edward  Ward,  Knight,  Attorney-General. 
1707     William  Earl  Cowper,  Lord  Chancellor. 
Sidney  Earl  Godolphin,  Prime  Minister. 

1709  Charles  Duke  of  Somerset. 

1710  John  Moore,  Bishop  of  Ely ;  afterwards  Archbishop  of 

Canterbury. 

1711  Sir  Simon  Harcourt,  Knight ;  afterwards  Lord  Harcourt, 

Lord  Chancellor. 

1713  Robert  Earl  of  Oxford. 
William  Earl  of  Dartmouth. 
John  Robinson,  Bishop  of  London. 

1714  Sir  Thomas  Parker,  Knight ;  afterwards  Lord  Parker, 

Lord  Chancellor,  then  Earl  of  Macclesfield. 
Jonathan  Trelawney,  Bishop  of  Winchester. 

1715  Rev.  John  King,  D.D.  (Master). 

1716  H.R.H.  George  Prince  of  Wales. 
William  Wake,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

Charles  Earl  of  Sunderland ;  afterwards  Prime  Minister. 

1717  Sir  Peter  King,  Knight;  afterwards  Lord  King,  Lord 

Chancellor. 
1721     James  Duke  of  Chandos. 

William  Talbot,  Bishop  of  Durham. 
Thomas  Duke  of  Newcastle. 


356  APPENDIX   D 

1722  Sir  Robert  Eyre,   Knight,   Lord  Chief  Justice  of  the 

Common  Pleas. 

1723  Edmund  Gibson,  Bishop  of  London. 
Charles  Viscount  Townsend. 

1724  Rt.  Hon.  Robert  Walpole,  Prime  Minister. 
1727     Thomas  Lord  Trevor. 

William  Duke  of  Devonshire. 

1729  Richard  Earl  of  Scarborough. 

1730  Sir    Robert    Raymond,   Attorney-General ;    afterwards 

Lord  Raymond. 
Lionel  Duke  of  Dorset. 

1732  Spencer  Earl  of  Wilmington. 

1733  William  Lord  Harrington. 

Sir    Philip    Yorke,    Knight,    Lord    Hardwicke,    Lord 
Chancellor. 

1734  Charles  Duke  of  Grafton. 

1736  Charles  Lord  Talbot,  Lord  Chancellor. 

1737  William  Duke  of  Devonshire. 

John  Potter,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Nicholas  Mann  (Master). 

1738  Sir  Joseph  Jekyll,  Knight. 

Henry  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery. 
1740     Charles  Duke  of  Richmond. 

1743  Sir  William  Lee,  Knight. 

1744  Rt.  Hon.  Henry  Pelham,  Prime  Minister. 

1745  Sir  John  Willes,  Knight,  Attorney-General. 

1748  John  Duke  of  Bedford. 

1749  Thomas  Sherlock,  Bishop  of  London. 

1750  John  Earl  Gower. 

Charles  Duke  of  Marlborough. 

1751  John  Earl  of  Sandwich. 

1753  Rev.  Philip  Bearcroft,  D.D.  (Master). 

1754  John  Earl  of  Granville. 
Robert  Earl  of  Holderness. 

1755  George  Admiral  Lord  Anson. 

1756  John  Duke  of  Rutland. 

1757  William  Duke  of  Devonshire. 

Matthew  Hutton,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  Elect. 
Granville  Levison,  Earl  Gower. 

1758  Thomas  Seeker,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

William  Lord  Mansfield,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England. 

1761  Robert  Lord  Henley,  Lord  Chancellor;  afterwards  Earl 

Northington. 
Rev.  Samuel  Salter,  D.D.  (Master). 

1762  John  Earl  of  Bute,  Prime  Minister. 
Richard  Osbaldeston,  Bishop  of  London. 
Charles  Earl  of  Egremont. 


APPENDIX   D  357 

Charles    Marquis    of   Rockingham;    afterwards    Prime 
Minister. 

1764  Rt.  Hon.  George  Grenville. 
George  Earl  of  Halifax. 
George  Duke  of  Marlborough. 

1765  Richard  Terrick,  Bishop  of  London. 

1768  Charles  Lord  Camden  ;  afterwards  Lord  Chancellor. 

1769  Frederick  Cornwallis,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

1770  Augustus  Henry  Duke  of  Grafton,  Prime  Minister. 

1771  Frederic  Lord  North,  Prime  Minister. 
William  Henry,  Earl  of  Rochford. 

1772  Henry  Lord  Apsley. 

1777  Henry  Earl  of  Suffolk. 

1778  Thomas  Viscount  Weymouth. 

Rev.  William  Ramsden,  D.D.  (Master). 

1779  Robert  Lowth,  Bishop  of  London. 
Edward,  Lord  Thurlow,  Lord  Chancellor. 

1781     William  Earl  of  Dartmouth. 
1783     Thomas  Lord  Sydney. 

John  Moore,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
1787     Rt.  Hon.  William  Pitt,  Prime  Minister. 

1792  Beilby  Porteus,  Bishop  of  London. 

William  Wyndham,  Lord  Grenville;  afterwards  Prime 
Minister. 

1793  Alexander  Lord  Loughborough,  Lord  Chancellor. 

1794  Rt.  Hon.  Henry  Dundas  ;  afterwards  Lord  Melville. 
Lloyd  Lord  Kenyon,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England. 

1796     John  Frederick,  Duke  of  Dorset. 

William  Henry  Cavendish,  Duke  of  Portland ;  afterwards 
Prime  Minister. 

1799  John  Earl  of  Chatham. 

1800  George  John,  Earl  Spencer. 

1802  John  Lord  Eldon,  Lord  Chancellor. 

1803  Rt.  Hon.  Henry  Addington,  Prime  Minister. 

Edward    Lord    Ellenborough,    Lord    Chief    Justice    of 
England. 

1804  Rev.  Philip  Fisher,  B.D.  (Master). 

1805  Charles  Manners  Sutton,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Robert    Banks,   Lord    Hawkesbury;    afterwards    Lord 

Liverpool,  Prime  Minister. 

1806  Rt.  Hon.  Charles  James  Fox. 
Thomas  Lord  Erskine,  Lord  Chancellor. 
Rt.  Hon.  William  Wyndham. 

1809  Charles  Earl  Grey ;  afterwards  Prime  Minister. 
John  Randolph,  Bishop  of  London. 

1810  Rt.  Hon.  Spencer  Perceval,  Prime  Minister. 

1811  John  Jefferies,  Earl  Camden. 


358  APPENDIX    D 

Francis  Earl  Moira. 

1812     Edward  Venables  Vernon,  Archbishop  of  York. 
1814    Dudley  Earl  of  Harrowby. 

1817     William  Howley,  Bishop  of  London ;  afterwards  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury. 
1819    John  Earl  of  Westmoreland. 
1823     Rt.  Hon.  George  Canning ;  afterwards  Prime  Minister. 

1827  Rt.  Hon.    Robert   Peel;    afterwards   Sir   Robert   Peel, 

Prime  Minister. 
Frederick  John,  Viscount  Goderich,  Prime  Minister. 

1828  Arthur  Duke  of  Wellington,  Prime  Minister. 

1829  John  Singleton,  Lord  Lyndhurst,  Lord  Chancellor. 

1834  Charles  James  Blomfield,  Bishop  of  London. 

1835  Sir  Charles  Manners  Sutton,  Baronet. 

Sir  Nicholas  Conyngham  Tindal,   Knight,   Lord  Chief 

Justice  of  Common  Pleas. 

1838     Charles  Christopher  Lord  Cottenham,  Lord  Chancellor. 
1840     William  Viscount  Melbourne,  Prime  Minister. 
1842     James  Archibald  Lord  Wharncliffe. 

Ven.  William  Hale  Hale,  M.A.  (Master). 

1844  Richard  William  Penn,  Earl  Howe. 

1845  Walter  Francis  Duke  of   Buccleugh  and  Queensberry, 

K.G. 
William  Earl  of  Devon. 

1846  Charles  Cecil  Cope,  Earl  of  Liverpool,  G.C.B. 

Lord  John  Russell,  Prime  Minister;  Earl  Russell  in  1861. 

1847  Edward   Copleston,    Bishop   of  Llandaff,   Dean   of  St. 

Paul's. 

1848  Thomas  Lord  Denman,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England. 
John  Bird  Sumner,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Thomas  Musgrave,  Archbishop  of  York. 

1849  Henry  Marquis  of  Lansdowne,  Lord  President  of    the 

Council. 

1850  Rt.  Hon.  Fox  Maule,  Secretary  at  War ;  Lord  Panmure 

in  1852,  Lord  Dalhousie  in  1860. 

1851  Sir  Cresswell  Cresswell,  Knight,  a  Justice  of  the  Common 

Pleas. 
Thomas,  Lord  Truro,  Lord  Chancellor. 

1852  Edward  Geoffrey,  Earl  of  Derby,  Prime  Minister. 

1854  George  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  Prime  Minister. 

1855  Robert  Monsey,  Lord  Cranworth,  Lord  Chancellor. 

1858  Dudley  Earl  of  Harrowby. 

1859  Archibald  Campbell  Tait,  Bishop  of  London,  Archbishop 

of  Canterbury  in  1869. 

Sir  George  James  Turner,  Knight,  a  Lord  Justice  of  the 
Court  of  Appeal  in  Chancery. 

1860  Charles  Earl  of  Romney. 


APPENDIX   D  859 

1861     Charles    Thomas    Longley,    Archbishop    of    York,    of 

Canterbury  in  1862. 
1863     Henry  John  Viscount  Palmerston,  Prime  Minister. 

William  Reginald  Earl  of  Devon. 

William  Thomson,  Archbishop  of  York. 

Frederic  Lord  Chelmsford,  Lord  Chancellor. 

1866  Rt.  Hon.  William  Ewart  Gladstone,  Prime  Minister. 

1867  Sir  William  Erie,  Knight,  a  Justice  of  Common  Pleas. 

1869  John  Jackson,  Bishop  of  London. 

William  Page,  Lord  Hatherley,  Lord  Chancellor. 

1870  John  Winston,  Duke  of  Marlborough. 

Hugh  MacCalmont,  Lord  Cairns,  Lord  Chancellor ;  after 

wards  Earl  Cairns. 

1872    Rev.  George  Currey,  D.D.  (Master). 
1874    Roundell    (Palmer)    Lord      Selborne,    formerly    Lord 

Chancellor. 
1874     Adelbert  Wellington  Brownlow,  Earl  Brownlow. 

1878  Anthony  Wilson  Thorold,  Bishop  of  Rochester;  after- 

wards of  Winchester. 

1879  Benjamin,  Earl  of  Beaconsfield. 

1880  Charles  Duke  of  Richmond  and  Gordon,  K.G. 

1881  Gathorne  (Hardy)  Viscount  Cranbrook,  G.C.S.I. 
1881     John  Gilbert  Talbot,  Esq.,  M.P.  for  Oxford. 

1883  John  Duke,  Lord  Coleridge,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of 
England. 

1883  Edward  White  (Benson),  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Granville  George,  Earl  of  Granville. 

1884  John  Rogerson,  Lord  Rollo. 

1885  Frederick  (Temple),  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Charles  Henry  Rolle,  Lord  Clinton. 

Canon  Richard  Elwyn,  M.A.  (Master). 

1887  William  Walsham  How,  Bishop  of  Bedford. 

1888  Hugh  Lupus  Duke  of  Westminster,  K.G. 

1889  Henry    Reward    Molyneux,  Earl    of   Carnarvon,    P.C., 

D.C.L. 
1891     Robert  Arthur  Talbot,  Marquis  of  Salisbury,  I.C.G.,  P.C., 

D.C.L.,  Prime  Minister. 
Charles  Cecil  John,  Duke  of  Rutland,  K.G. 
William  Connor,   Bishop  of  Peterborough,   Archbishop 

Elect  of  York. 
Richard  Assheton,  Viscount  Cross,  G.C.,  G.C.B.,  D.C.L., 

LL.D.,  F.R.S. 

William  Dalrymple  (Maclagan),  Archbishop  of  York. 
1894     Charles  Lindley,  Viscount  Halifax. 

1896  Sir  Richard  Everard  Webster,  Attorney-General ;  after- 
wards Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England,  Viscount 
Alverstone. 


360  APPENDIX   D 

Randall    Thomas    (Davidson),  Bishop    of   Winchester; 

afterwards  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
1897     Mandell  (Creighton),  Bishop  of  London. 

Canon  William  Haig  Brown,  LL.D.  (Master). 
1901     Arthur  Foley  (Winnington-Ingram),  Bishop  of  London. 
Frederic     Sleigh    Earl    Roberts,    K.G.,    K.P.,    G.C.B., 
G.C.S.I.,  G.C.J.E.,  V.C.,  Field  Marshal. 

1903  William  George  Spenser  Scott,  Marquis  of  Northampton. 
William  Earl  of  Stamford. 

Stuart  Bishop  of  Rochester;  Bishop  of  Southwark,  1905. 
Sir  Richard  Claverhouse  Jebb. 

1904  James  Edward  Hubert,  Marquis  of  Salisbury. 

1906  John  Compton  Lawrance,  Judge  of  King's  Bench. 

1907  Rev.  George  Edward  Jelf,  D.D.  (Master). 

1908  Rev.  Gerald  Stanley  Davies,  M.A.  (Master). 

1910  William  St.  John,  Viscount  Midleton. 
Cosmo  Gordon  (Lang),  Archbishop  of  York. 

1911  Sir  Henry  Seymour  King,  K.C.I.E. 

1913  Sir  Ernest  Murray  Pollock,  K.C.,  M.P. 

1914  Edgar  Charles  Sumner  (Gibson),  Bishop  of  Gloucester. 
James  Viscount  Bryce,  O.M. 

1915  Paul    Sandford,    Baron    Methuen,    G.C.B.,     G.C.V.O., 

C.M.G. 

1916  Thomas  Ethelbert  Page,  Litt.  D. 
1921     Viscount  Peel. 

VI 

The  Governing  Body  of  the  School  from  1872  : 

1872     Archibald  Campbell,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

William  Archbishop  of  York. 

Walter  Duke  of  Buccleugh  and  Queensberry,  K.G. 

William  Reginald  Earl  of  Devon. 

Charles  Marsham,  Earl  of  Romney. 

Dudley  Earl  of  Harrowby,  K.G. 

Frederick  Lord  Chelmsford. 

The  Rev.  C.  J.  Vaughan,  D.D.,  Master  of  the  Temple. 

The  Rev.  George  Currey,  D.D.,  Master  of  Charterhouse. 

The  Hon.  Justice  George  Denman,  M.P. 

The  Rev.  Professor  Palmer,  Archdeacon  of  Oxford. 

Professor  Sir  Richard  Claverhouse  Jebb. 

George  Busk,  Esq.,  F.R.S. 

P.  M.  Duncan,  Esq.,  F.R.S. 

Gordon  Whitbread,  Esq. 
1874     John  Bishop  of  London. 

1876     Rev.  E.  W.  Blore,  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 
1878    Roundell  Lord  Selborne. 


APPENDIX    D  361 

1880    Richard    Everard    (Webster),    Lord    Chief    Justice    of 
England,  Viscount  Alverstone. 

1882  Samuel  Chichester,  Lord  Carlingford,  Lord  Privy  Seal. 
Edward  White  (Benson),  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

1883  John  Gilbert  Talbot,  M.P.,  Privy  Councillor. 

1884  Anthony  Wilson  (Thorold),  Bishop  of  Winchester. 

1885  Frederick  (Temple),  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Canon  Richard  Elwyn,  M.A.,  Master  of  Charterhouse. 
Herbert  Clifford  Saunders,  Q.C. 

1886  George  Carey  Foster,  F.R.S. 

1887  Schomberg,  Henry,  Marquis  of  Lothian,  K.T.,  L.S.D. 

1889  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  John  Ferguson  Bo  wen,  G.C.M.G. 
John  Duke,  Baron  Coleridge,  Lord  Chief  Justice. 

1890  Frederick  Earl  Beauchamp. 

1891  John  Rogerson,  Lord  Rollo. 
Sir  Edward  Fry,  Lord  Justice. 

John  Whittaker  Hulke,  F.R.S.,  F.R.C.S. 

Rev.  Lancelot  Ridley  Phclps,  Oriel  College,  Oxon. 

1893  Sir  Richard  Claverhouse  Jebb,  D.C.L.,  LL.D. 

1894  Schomberg,  Henry,  Marquis  of  Lothian. 
George  Henry  Darwin,  F.R.S. 

1895  Randall  Thomas  Davidson,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

1896  Reginald  Walter  Macan,  LL.D.,  Master  of  University 

College,  Oxon. 

1897  Mandell  (Creighton),  Bishop  of  London. 
Frederick  (Temple),  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

Canon  William  Haig-Brown,  LL.D.,  Master  of  Charter- 
house. 

1900  William  Dalrymple  (Maclagan),  Archbishop  of  York. 

1901  Arthur  Foley  (Winnington-Ingram),  Bishop  of  London. 
George  Carey  Foster,  F.R.S. 

1902  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Principal  of  Birmingham  University. 
Professor  Charles  Scott  Sherrington. 

1903  Herbert  Edward  (Ryle),  Bishop  of  Winchester. 

1905  John  Alderson  Footc,  K.C. 

1906  Sir  Lawrence  Nunns  Guillemard,  C.B.,     Deputy  Chair- 

man, Inland  Revenue. 

1907  Canon  Reginald  St.  John  Parry,  Dean  of  Trinity  College, 

Cambridge. 

Professor  Ernest  Arthur  Gardner,  M.A. 
George  Edward  Jelf,  D.D.,  Master  of  Charterhouse. 
William  St.  John  Fremantle,  Viscount  Midleton. 

1908  Professor  Sir  William  Tildcn,  F.R.S. 

1909  Rev.  Gerald  Stanley  Davies,  M.  A.,  Master  of  Charterhouse. 

1910  Sir  Kenneth  Augustus  Muir  Mackenzie,  K.C.,  K.C.B. 
Cosmo  Gordon  (Lang),  Archbishop  of  York. 

1912     Arthur  Foley  (Winnington-Ingram),  Bishop  of  London. 
Thomas  Ethelbert  Page,  Litt.D. 


APPENDIX   E 
I 

SOME   DISTINGUISHED  CARTHUSIANS  SINCE  THE  FOUNDATION 

UP  TO  1872 

This  list  consists  almost  entirely  of  those  whose  names  are 
recorded  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography.  Scholars  on 
the  Foundation  are  marked  with  an  asterisk  (*).  Living  Car- 
thusians are  mentioned  only  in  cases  where  they  were  at 
Charterhouse  in  London. 

The  dagger  (f)  before  a  name  implies  a  Scholar  on  the 
Foundation  ("  Gownboy  "). 

Addison,  Joseph,  1672-1719.     Author. 

Alderson,   Sir  Edward   Hall,   1787-1857.     Senior  Wrangler,   First 

Smith's  Prizeman,  Chancellor's  Medallist,  Judge. 
Alverstone,  Richard  Everard  Webster,  1842-1916.     First  Viscount 

Alverstone,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England. 
Armstrong,  John,  1813-56.     Bishop  of  Grahamstown. 
Arnould,  Sir  Joseph,  1814-86.     Chief  Justice  of  Bombay,  Writer. 
Ashurst,    William    Henry,    1725-1807.     Judge    of    King's    Bench, 

succeeded  Sir  William  Blackstone. 

Babington,  Charles  Cardale,  1808-95.     Botanist,  Archaeologist. 
tBaden-Powell,    General    Sir    Robert,    1851-living.       Defender    of 

Mafeking,  Founder  of  the  Boy  Scouts. 
Barrow,  Isaac,  D.D.     Master  of  Trinity,  Scholar,  Mathematician, 

Preacher. 

Beddoes,  Thomas  Lovell,  1803-49.     Poet. 
fBearcroft,    Philip,    D.D.,     1695-1761.     Master    of    Charterhouse, 

1653—61,  Author  of  An  Historical  Account  of  Charterhouse. 
fBenson,  Martin,  1689-1752.     Bishop  of  Gloucester,  1735. 
Bindley,  James,  1737-1818.     Antiquarian  and  Book-collector. 
fBlackstone,  Sir  William,  1723-80. 
fBode,  John  Ernest,  1816-74.     Scholar,  Divine. 
fBonney,  Henry  Kaye,  1782-1862.     Divine. 
Boone,  James  Shergold,  1799-1859.     Scholar,  Man  of  Letters. 
Boteler,  William  Fuller,  1777-85.     Senior  Wrangler,  First  Smith's 

Prizeman,  Commissioner  in  Bankruptcy. 
fBowen,  Sir  George  Ferguson,  L.L.D.,  1821-99.     Privy  Councillor, 

Governor  of  Victoria,  and  of  Mauritius. 
Bradford,   Samuel,   D.D.,    1652-1731.     Bishop   of   Carlisle,  and  of 


fBurney,  Charles,  D.D.,  1757-1817.     Classical  Critic. 

362 


APPENDIX   E  363 

Carpenter,  Richard  Cromwell,  1812-55.     Architect. 
fChurton,  Edward,  1800-74.     Archdeacon,  Spanish  Scholar. 
fClark,  George  Thomas,  1809-98.     Engineer,  Archaeologist. 
Cockle,    Sir   James,    1819-95.     Mathematician,    Chief    Justice   of 

Queensland. 
tCotton,  Richard  Lynch,  D.D.,  1794-1880.     Provost  of  Worcester 

College,  Oxon.,  Vice  Chancellor. 
fCrashaw,  Richard,  1613  (?)-49.     Poet. 
Cresswell,  Sir  Cresswell,  1794-1863.     Judge  of  Court  of  Common 

Pleas. 
fCullum,    Sir   Thomas    Grey,    1741-        .     Botanist,    Antiquarian, 

Bath  King-at-Arms. 

Currey,    George,    D.D.,    1816-75.     Fourth    in    Classical    Tripos, 
Cambridge,  and  Fourteenth  Wrangler,  Master  of  Charterhouse, 
1872-85. 
Currie,   Sir  Frederick,   Bart.,    1799-1875.     Vice-President  of   the 

Council  of  India. 

Curzon,  Robert,  Fourteenth  Baron  Zouche,  1810-73.     Antiquarian, 
Man  of  Letters. 

Davies,  John,  1748-89.     President  of  Queens'  College,  Cambridge, 

Vice-Chancellor. 

Dawes,  William  Rutler,  1799-1868.     Astronomer. 
Day,  Thomas,  1748-89.     Author  of  Sandford  and  Merlon. 
Dennis,  George.     Antiquarian,  Author  of  Cities  and  Cemeteries  of 

Etruria. 
fDes  Vceux,  Sir  George  William,  1834-1909.     Diplomatist,  Governor 

of  Sta.  Lucia,  Fiji,  Hongkong,  Newfoundland. 
Drummond-Hay,  Sir  John  Hay,  1816-93.     Privy  Councillor. 
fDryden,    Sir    Erasmus    Henry,    Bart.,    1669-1710.     Son    of    John 

Dryden. 
tDurham,  William,  D.D.,  died  1686.     Preacher  and  Writer. 

Eastlake,  Sir  Charles,  1793-1865.     President  of  the  Royal  Academy. 

Eastwick,  Edward  Backhouse,  1814—83.     Orientalist. 

Edgworth,  Michael  Packingham,  1812-81.     Orientalist,  Botanist. 
fEllenborough,  Edward  Law,  First  Baron  Ellenborough,  1750-1818. 
Lord  Chief  Justice. 

Elwyn,  Richard,  Canon.     Senior  Classic,  Headmaster  of  Charter- 
house, Master  of  Charterhouse. 

Fane,  John,  Tenth  Earl  of  Westmoreland,  1759-1841.     Politician, 

Privy  Councillor,  Lord-Lieut,  of  Ireland. 
Farre,  Arthur,  1811-57.     Physician,  Writer. 
Farre,  Frederic  John,  1804-86.     Botanist,  Physician. 
Felton,  Henry,  D.D.,  1679-1740.     Divine. 
Fitzwilliam,   Richard,   Seventh   Viscount   Fitzwilliam,    1745-1816. 

Founder  of  Fitzwilliam  Museum,  Cambridge. 
Fonblanque,  John  Samuel  Martin  de  Grenier,  1787-1865.     Legal 

Writer,  one  of  the  Founders  of  the  Union  Society,  Cambridge. 
Forbes-Robertson,  Sir  Johnston,  \853-living.     Actor. 

fGibson,  Edgar  Charles  Sumner,  1848-Zivingr.     Bishop  of  Gloucester. 

Gibson,  Thomas  Milner,  1806-84.     Privy  Councillor. 

Giles,  John  Allen,  D.C.L.,  1808-84.     Editor  and  Translator. 
fGosnold,  John,  1625-78.     Baptist  Preacher. 
JGreaves,  Thomas,  1612-76.     Orientalist. 

Grote,  George,  LL.D.,  1794-1871.     Historian  of  Greece. 

Hale,  William  Hale,  1795-1872.     Master  of  Charterhouse,  1842-72, 
Archdeacon  of  London. 


364  APPENDIX    E 

Hamilton,  William  John,  1805-67.     Geologist. 

Hare,  Julius  Charles,  1795-1855.     Man  of  Letters. 

Havelock,     General     Sir     Henry,     Bart.,     1795-1857.     Believed 
Lucknow. 

Hayter,  Henry  Heylin,  1821-95.     Statistician. 
fHenshaw,  Joseph,  D.D.,  1603-79.     Bishop  of  Peterborough. 
JHewlett,  Joseph  Thomas  James,  1800-47.     Novelist. 
tHildesley,  Mark,  D.D.,  1698-1772.     Bishop  of  Sodor  and  Man. 

fJames,  John  Thomas,  D.D.,  1786-1828.     Bishop  of  Calcutta. 
fJebb,  Sir  Richard  Claverhouse,   1841-1905.     Senior  Classic,   Pro- 
fessor of  Greek  at  Glasgow,  M.P.  for  Cambridge  University, 
1891-1905. 
fJenkinson,  Charles,  First  Lord  Liverpool,  1728-1808.     Statesman. 

Jenkinson,  Robert  Barker,  Second  Lord  Liverpool,  1770-1828. 
tJohnson,  John,  1759-1833.     Divine. 

Jones,  Owen,  1809-74.     Architect  and  Designer. 
fJones,  William,  of  Nayland,  1726-1800.     Divine,  Writer. 

Jortin,  John,  1698-1770.     Divine,  Ecclesiastical  Writer  and  Critic. 

fKeene,  Edmund,  D.D.,  1714-81.     Bishop  of  Ely  and  Chester. 
fKing,  John,  D.D.,  1660-1737.     Archdeacon  of  Colchester,  Canon  of 
Bristol,  Master  of  Charterhouse,  1715-37. 

|Law,  Edward,  First  Baron  Ellenborough,  1750-1818.     Lord  Chief 

Justice  (see  Ellenborough). 
fLaw,  John,  1745-1810.     Bishop  of  Elphin. 
Law,  George  Henry,  D.D.,  1761-1845.     Bishop  of  Chester  and  of 

Bath  and  Wells. 
Leech,  John,  1817-64.     Artist. 

Liddell,  Henry  George,  D.D.,  1811-98.      Compiler  with  Dr.  Scott 
of  the  Greek  Lexicon,  Dean  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  1855-91. 
fLocker,  Arthur,  1828-93.     Novelist,  Journalist. 
Lovelace,  Colonel  Richard,  1618-58.     Poet. 
fLushington,   Edmund  Henry,   1811-93.     Senior  Classic,  Professor 

of  Greek  at  Glasgow. 
Lushington,  Henry,  1812-55.     Person  Scholar,  First  Class  Classic. 

fMajendie,  Henry  William,  1754-1830.     Bishop  of  Chester  and  of 

Bangor. 

Maples,  Chauncy,  1852-1895.     Bishop  of  Zanzibar. 
Maule,  Fox,  Earl  of  Dalhousie,  1809-18.     Secretary  of  State  for 

War,  1885-88. 

Mills,  Charles  Augustus,  1850-1918.     Engineer  and  Archaeologist. 
tMontagu,  Basil,  Knight,  1770-1851.     Legal  Writer,  Philanthropist. 
Mozley,  Thomas,  1806-1893.     Divine  and  Journalist. 
Murray,  John,  1808-92.     Publisher. 

fNettleship,  Henry,  1839-93.     Hertford  and  Craven  Scholar,  Oxford, 
Professor  of  Latin  at  Oxford. 

Palgrave,  Francis  Turner,  1824.     Balliol  Scholar,  Man  of  Letters. 

Palgrave,  William   Gifford,  1826.     First   Class   Lit.Hum.,  Consul- 
General,  Siam,  Traveller,  Writer. 

fPalmer,  Edwin,  1824-95.     Scholar  of  Balliol,  Archdeacon  of  Oxford, 
Canon  of  Cnristchurch. 

Rawlinson,  Sir  Christopher,  1806-88.     Indian  Judge,  Chief  Justice 

Supreme  Court  of  Madras. 

Rodd,  Thomas,  1763-1822.     Bookseller,  Author,  Inventor. 
tRussell,  John,  D.D.     Headmaster,  1811-1832. 


APPENDIX   E  365 

tScott,  Alexander  John,  D.D.,  1768-1840.  Rector  of  Southminster 
(a  Charterhouse  living),  Naval  Chaplain,  served  on  the  London 
(Admiral  Sir  Hyde  Parker)  at  Copenhagen,  1801,  on  the  Victory 
(Admiral  Lord  Nelson)  at  Trafalgar,  1805,  Nelson's  Private 
Secretary,  Chaplain  to  the  Prince  Regent. 
Scott,  John,  1798-1846.  Surgeon,  Writer. 

t Scott,  Charles  Perry,  1817-  living.     First  Bishop  of  North  China. 
Seward,  William,  1747-99,  Man  of  Letters. 
tSiddons,  Henry,  1774-1815.     Actor  (son  of  Mrs.  Siddons). 
fSteele,  Sir  Richard,  1072-1729.     Author. 
fStewart,  John,  1749-1822.     Traveller,  Writer,  known  as  "  Walking 

Stewart." 
Stone,  Rev.  Samuel  John,  1837-1918.     Author  of  various  poems  and 

hymns  ("  The  Church's  one  Foundation,"  etc.). 
Storks,  Sir  Henry  Knight  Storks,  1811-1874.     Soldier  and  Adminis- 
trator, Governor  of  Jamaica  and  of  Malta. 

Templeman,  Peter,  1711-69.     Physician. 

Thackeray,  William  Makepeace,  1811-63.     Author. 

Thirlwall,  Connop,  1797-1875.     Bishop  of  St.  David's,  Historian  of 

Greece. 
Thomas,   John,    1696-1781.     Bishop   of   Peterborough,    1747 ;     of 

Salisbury,  1757  ;   of  Winchester,  1761-81. 
Toller,  Sir  Samuel,  died  1821.     Advocate-General  of  Madras. 
fTooke,  Andrew,  1673-1732.     Classical  Scholar,  Author  of  Tookc's 

Pantheon,  Headmaster  1728-32. 
Tupper,  Martin,  1810-89.     Author  of  Proverbial  Philosophy. 

Venables,    George    Stovin,   1810-88.     Chancellor's    Medalist    for 
English  Verse.  Barrister,  Writer. 

Walford,  Edward,  1823-97.     Scholar  of  Balliol,  Man  of  Letters,  and 

Journalist. 

f Wesley,  John,  1703-1791.     Divine, 
f  Williams,    Roger,    1610-83.     Founded   the   Settlement   of    Rhode 

Island  (a  memorial  in  Chapel  Cloister). 
fWollaston,  Francis  John  Hyde,  1762-1823.     Natural  Philosopher, 

wrote  The  Variation  of  Species. 

jWollaston,  William  Hyde,  1706-1822.     Physiologist,  Chemist. 
Wray,  Daniel,  1701-83.     Antiquarian,  gave  "  The  Officers'  Library  " 

to  Charterhouse. 

II 

SOME  CARTHUSIAN  WORTHIES  NOT  EDUCATED  AT  THE  SCHOOL 
BUT  CONNECTED  WITH  CHARTERHOUSE 

This  list  consists  mainly  of  those  whose  names  appear  in 
the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 

Thomas  Sutton,  1532—1611.  Master  of  Ordnance  for  Berwick  and 
the  North  of  England  to  Queen  Elizabeth.  Founder  of  Sutton's 
Hospital. 

Berdmore,  Samuel,  1740-1802.     Headmaster,  17(39-91. 

Burnet,  Thomas,  1635-1715.     Master,  1685-1715. 

Bushnan,  John  Stevenson,  1808-84.      Writer  on  Medical  Subjects, 

went  blind,  Pensioner. 
Clifford,  Martin,  d.  1677.      Master,    1671-77.      Buffoon   about   the 

Court  (i.e.  cupbearer)  to  Charles  II. 
Cosyn,  Benjamin,  fl.  about  1620.     Organist,  Composer. 

2  B 


366  APPENDIX   E 

Crusius,  Lewis,  1701-75.     Headmaster,  1748-69. 

Dallington,  Sir  Robert,  1561-1637.     Master,  1624-37. 

Dowton,  William,  d.  1883.     Pensioner,  Actor. 

Erskine,  William,  d.  1685.     Master,  1677-85. 

Gray,  Stephen,  d.  1736.     Pensioner,  Pioneer  of  Electric  Science. 

Green,  Jonathan,  1788-1864.     Pensioner,  Medical  writer. 

Grey,  Nicholas,  1590-1660.     Headmaster,  1614-24. 

Grieve,  James,  d.  1773.     Physician  to  Charterhouse. 

Haig-Brown,    William,    LLD.       Headmaster,    1864-97.       Master, 

1897-1907. 
Horsley,  William,  1774-1858.     Organist,  1838-58,  Musical  Composer, 

wrote  the  music  of  "Carmen  Carthusianum." 
Hullah,  John  Pyke,  1812-84.    Organist,  1858-84,  Musical  Composer, 

assisted  Horsley  and  Phillott  in  "Carmen  Carthusianum." 
Hulme,  Nathaniel,  1732-1807.     Physician  to  Charterhouse,  1774- 

1807. 
Hume,    Tobias,    d.    1645.     Pensioner,    1629,    Soldier    of     Fortune, 

Musician  and  writer  on  music. 
Macbean,  Alex,  d.  1784.     Pensioner,  1780,  one  of  the  six  amanuenses 

for  Johnson's  Dictionary. 
Mann,  Nicolas,  d.  1753.     Master,  1737-53. 
Morton,  Maddison,   1811-91.     Pensioner,   1881,    Actor,    Author    of 

Box  and  Cox,  1847. 
Pepusch,   John   Christopher,   Mus.Doc.,   1667-1752.     Musician  and 

Composer,  Organist  of  Charterhouse.     Buried  in  Charterhouse 

Chapel. 

Pilkington,  William,  1758-1848.  )     Architects,     added    to 

Pilkington,  William  Redmond,  1789-1844. /      London  Charterhouse. 
Raine,  Matthew,  1760-1811.     Headmaster,  1791-1811. 
Settle,  Elkanah,  1648-1724.     Pensioner,  1718-1723-27. 
Stevens,  Richard  John  Samuel,  1757-1837.     Musician  and  Composer 

of  many  glees,  Organist  of  Charterhouse,  1796-1837.     Buried  in 

the  Chapel  Cloister. 
Williams,    Zachariah,    1673-75.       Medical     practitioner,    Man     of 

Science,    Inventor.     Became    a    Brother,    1729.     Friend    and 

contemporary  of  Stephen  Gray.     Expelled  in.  1748  for  general 

breaches  of  rule  and  for  having,  without  permission,  allowed  his 

daughter  to  live  with  hi  in  two  years  in  the  Hospital.     Friend  of 

Dr.  Johnson  and  Jones  of  Nayland  (q.v.). 


APPENDIX   F 


CARMEN   CARTHUSIANUM 

"  Carmen  Carthusianum."  The  words  by  Henry  Wright 
Phillott,  Assistant  Master,  Charterhouse.  The  Music  by 
William  Horsley,  organist  to  Charterhouse  :  assisted  by  John 
Hullah,  afterwards  organist  to  Charterhouse. 

CABMEN  CARTHUSIANUM 

W.  HORSLHV,  Mus.  Bac.  Oxon. — (Organist  of  Charterhouse,  A.u.  1838- 

„•  1858.) 

^v 

Laeti  laudato  Doininurn, 
Fontem  perennem  boni, 
Recolentes  Fundatoris 
Memoriam  Suttoni. 

Omnes  laudate  Dominum, 
Vos  quibus  singularia 
Suttonus  bona  prsebuit ; 
Et  dornum  et  bursaria. 

Senes,  laudate  Dominum, 
Keddatis  et  honorem 
Suttono,  quibus  requies 
Paratur  post  laborem. 

Pueri,  laudate  Dominum, 
Quoscumque  hie  instituit 
Suttonus  bpnis  literis 
Et  pietate  imbuit. 

Ergo  laudate  Dominum,* 
Omnes  Carthusiani, 
Puerique  rus  amantes, 
Et  senes  oppidani. 

Laeti  laudate  Dominum, 
Surgat  6  Choro  Sonus, 
O  FLOREAT  ^ITEHNUM 
CARTHUSIANA  DOMUS. 

*iThis  stauza  was  added  by  Dr.  Haig-Browu  after  the  removal 
of  the  school. 

367 


APPENDIX   G 


LIST   OF   CARTHUSIANS 

SERVING  IN  THE  BRITISH  AND  ALLIED 

FORCES 

From  August  4, 1914,  to  November  11, 1918 

AND  IN  THE  SUBSEQUENT  RUSSIAN   CAMPAIGNS 

The  letter  and  date  preceding  each  name  denote  boarding-house 
and  year  of  leaving  School. 

The  ranks  given  are,  in  most  cases,  the  highest  held  during  the 
War. 

*=Mentioned  in  Despatches.         t— Killed,  or  died  of  wounds  or 
sickness.  J  = Wounded.  p= Prisoner  of  War. 

V  1891*tAbadie,  E.  H.  E.  (D.S.O.),  Major,  9th  Lancers 

V  1896***tAbadie,  R.  N.  (D.S.O.),  Lt.-Col.,  2nd  60th  Rifles 

D  1915     Abbott,  W.  F.,  2nd  Lt.,  4th  East  Surrey  Regt. 

D  1912  fAbbott,  T.  W.,  2nd  Lt..  R.F.C. 

8  1871  *Abdy,  A.  J.  (C.B.,  C.B.E.),  Brigadier-General,  R.A. 

P  1909**JJAbdy,  J.  R.  (Italian  Silver  Medal  for  Valour,  Croix  de 

Guerre),  Capt.,  Sherwood  Rangers 

H  1912     Abdy,  R.  H.  E.,  Lt.,  15th  (The  King's)  Hussars 

V  1911   JAbell,  J.  G.,  Capt.,  4th  Leicestershire  Regt. 

P  1915  *Abercrombie,  G.  F.,  Surgeon  Sub-Lt.,  R.N.V.R. 

S  J910     Acheson,  J.  G.,  Lt.,  3rd  Seaforth  Highlanders 

D  1907     Acheson-Gray,  C.  G.  A.,  Lt.,  4th  Dorsetshire  Regt. 

V  1876  *Acland,  A.  D.  (T.D.),  Lt.-Col.,  R.  1st  Devon  Yeomanry  ; 

Assistant  Director  of  Labour 

H  1916  tAdams,  J.  S.,  2nd  Lt.,  7th  The  Queen's 

P  1912  t  Adams,  R.  N.  (M.C.),  Capt.,  7th  R.  Fusiliers  «fc  R.F.C. 

S  1909     Agar,  T.  F.,  Lt.,  R.E. 

g  1903     Agelasto,  E.  J.,  2nd  Lt.,  8th  Manchester  Regt. 

W  1895     Aglionby,  F.  B.,  2nd  Lt.,  Kent  R.G.A. 

P  1900     Aikman,  T.  T.,  Capt.,  R.A.S.C. 

B  1911  tAitcbison,  R.  A.  C.,  2nd  Lt.,  1st  R.  Lancaster  Regt. 

P  1915  fAked,  R.  B.  C.  (M.C.),  Lt.,  5th  North  Staffordshire  Regt. 

R  1907JiAlbu,  V.  C.,  Lt.,  R.F.A. 

W  1892     Aldrich-Blake,  R.  M.,  Pte.,  R.  Fusiliers 

B  1899  t  Alexander,  L.  W.,  Capt.,  1st  (King's)  Dragoon  Guards 

S  1912*JAllan,  J.  L.  (M.B.E.),  Lt.,  R.F.A.  ;   War  Office 

B  1899  *Allau,  P.  B.  M.,  Capt.,  3rd  London  Scottish  ;   War  Office 

308 


APPENDIX    G  869 

G  1902     Allden,  J.  E.,  Lt.,  General  Last ;  Staff 

G  1907***Allden,  S.  G.  (D.S.O.),  Major,  B.A.S.C.  ;   D.A.Q.-M.-G. 

B  1892  tAllen,  C.  B.  (M.C.),  Capt..  6th  Manchester  Regt. 

S  1888    Allen,  E.  C.  (I.C.S.),  2nd  Lt.,  I.A.B.O.,  attd.  Labour 

Corps 

g  1909**Allen,  J.  R.,  Capt.,  R.A.S.C. 

V  1904     Allen,  Rev.  L.  J.,  Chaplain,  H.M.S.  Courageous 

W  1903**Allen,  R.  H.  (M.C.),  Major,  R.A.  ;   D.A.A.-G. 

B  1891*fAlston,  C.  H.  T.,  Major,  R.A.F. 

G  1908  f  Alston,  C.  McC.,  Lt.,  2nd  R.  Scots  Fusiliers 

B  1891     Alston,  I.  G.  P.,  Trooper,  Indian  Defence  Force 

B  1887  tAlston,  J.  W.  H.,  Major,  1st  Arg.  &  Suth.  Highlanders 

D  1908     Aman,  J.  G.,  Capt.,  Hants  B.G.A. 

g  1905  JAmes,  L.  G.,  Capt.,  5th  Grenadier  Guards 

g  1878  *Ames,  O.  H.,  Lt.-CoL,  2nd  Life  Guards 

B  1913  JAmsden,  W.  F.,  Lt.,  12th  London  Regt. 

H  1881  "Ancrum,  G.  W.,  Capt.,  R.A.M.C. 

G  1895     Anderson,  C.  A.  Surgeon,  Lt.,  H.M.S.  Victory 

B  1915  JAnderson,  D.  L.,  Capt.,  The  Black  Watch 

G  1893  *  Anderson,  E.  S.  J.,  Major,  Military  Accounts  Dept.,  I. A. 

L  1914     Anderson,  G.  B.  (M.C.),  Major,  1st  E.  Lanes.  Bde.,  B.F.A. 

G  1901   tAnderson,  G.  W.,  Capt.,  R.A.S.C. 

P  1915  Anderson,  J.  E.  S.,  Sub-Lt.,  H.M.S.  Revenge 

G  1903  *Anderson,  J.  G.,  Capt.,  R.G.A. 

G  1910  {Anderson,  K.  A.  N.  (M.C.),  Capt.,  1st  Seaforth  Highlanders 

G  1890*  J  Anderson,  W.  H.,  Capt.,  London  Scottish 

V  1897     Anderton,  C.  S.,  2nd  Lt.,  R.  Sussex  Regt. 

D  1893  fAnderton,  E.,  Lt.,  E.  African  Field  Force  (Censor) 

B  1887     Andrews,  A.  W.,  2nd  Lt.,  R.E. 

L  1903  J  Andrews,  L.  H.  G.,  Capt.,  Bedford  Regt.  &  Egyptian 

Army 

g  1910**JJAngas,  L.  L.  B.  (M.C.,  Belgian  Croix  de  Guerre),  Major, 

1st  attd.  4th  Cheshire  Regt. 

H  1912  JAnsley,  S.  S.  (M.C.),  Capt.,  Berkshire  R.H.A. 

S  1896  fAntrobus,  C.  A.,  Capt.,  1st  K.O.  Scottish  Borderers 

S  1894  fAntrobus,  Hugh,  Major,  6th  Cameron  Highlanders 

S  1908***Antrobus,  R.  H.  (M.C.),  Major,  R.F.A. 

L  1912     Apcar,  C.,  Rifleman,  London  Rifle  Brigade 

B  1911   |Arbuthnott,  J.,  Lt.,  2nd  Grenadier  Guards 

S  1898  JArcher,  H.  W.,  Major,  Northumberland  Pus. ;  D.A.Q.-M.-G. 

V  1903     Archer,  P.  A.  E.,  Capt.,  R.  1st  Devon  Yeomanry 

W  1896     Argles,  H.  D.,  Lt.,  3rd  County  of  London  Yeomanry 

W  1900     Argles,  R.  M.,  Lt.,  R.A.S.C. 

W  1913  JArkwright,  L.,  Lt.,  R.F.A. 

H  1898     Armitage,  N.  C.,  Lt.,  R.G.A. 

B  1897   *  Armitage,  W.  A.  (D.S.O.),  Major,  3rd  York  &  Lancaster 

Regt.  &  M.G.C.  (Motor) 

V  1890     Armstrong,  F.  P.  (O.B.E.),  Commander,  R.N.V.B. 

g  1883  *Armstrong,  G.  D.  (D.S.O.),  Bt.  Col.,  12th  B.  Warwick  Regt. 

L  1905     Armstrong,  H.  M.,  Gunner,  3rd  Canadian  F.A. 

g  1902     Armstrong,  M.  D.,  Lt.,  8th  Middlesex  Begt. 

B  1900     Armstrong,  B.,  Lt.,  B.A.S.C. 

k  1902***JArmstrong,  W.   F.   (D.S.O.),  M.C.  with  Bar),  Major, 

B.G.A. 

G  1913**Arthur,  J.  S.  (M.C.),  Lt.,  B.F.A.,  attd.  B.A.F. 

W  1901     Arundel,  A.  D.  S.,  Capt.,  B.A.S.C. 

D  1912  tAscroft,  B.  G.  L.,  2nd  Lt.,  10th  Manchester  Begt. 

D  1884     Ashby,  G.  K.,  Capt.,  British  Columbia  Begt.  ;    Staff  Lt. 

P  1897     Asprey,  G.  K.,  Capt.,  Scots  Guards,  attd.  B.A.O.C. 


870  APPENDIX   G 

W  1882******Asser,  Sir  J.  J.  (K.C.M.G.,  K.C.V.O.,  C.B.,  Legion 
of  Honour,  Croix  de  Guerre,  Russian  Order  of  St. 
Anne,  Belgian  Order  of  the  Crown  &  Croix  de  Guerre, 
Japanese  Order  of  The  Sacred  Treasure,  Portuguese 
Military  Order  of  Aviz,  Ordre  du  Me"rite  Agricole), 
Lieut.-General  on  Lanes  of  Communication 

G      1915*fAstley,  E.  D.  D'O.,  Capt.,  3rd  R.  Berkshire  Regt. 

V  1876**Atherton,  T.  J.  (C.B.,  C.M.G.),  formerly  12th  Lancers, 
Bt.  Col.,  6th  Reserve  Cavalry  &  Labour  Corps 

g       1915  JAtkins,  L.  O.,  Lt.,  3rd  East  Surrey  Regt. 

H      1914  JAtkinson,  A.  F.,  Lt.,  R.E. 

P  1883******Atkinson,  E.  H.  de  V.  (C.B.,  C.M.G.,  C.I.E.,  Legion 
of  Honour,  Belgian  Order  of  the  Crown,  Portuguese 
Military  Order  of  Aviz,  French  and  Belgian  Croix  de 
Guerre),  Major- General ;  Chief  Engineer 

S  1894  *  Atkinson,  G.  B.,  Major,  3rd  Northumberland  Fusiliers  ; 
Assistant  Controller  of  Labour 

S       1898* {I Atkinson,  G.  M.  (D.S.O.),  Major,  2nd  60th  Rifles 

S       1900  JAtkinson,  G.  N.,  Capt.,  2nd  Somerset  L.I. 

g       1 908 *f  Atkinson,  H.  N.  (D.S.O.),  Lt.,  3rd  attd.  1st  Cheshire  Regt. 

g       1907* 'Atkinson,  K.  P.  (M.C.),  Major,  R.F.A.  &  R.A.F. 

W     1913  JAtkinson,  L.  O.,  Lt.,  7th  The  King's  (Liverpool  Regt.) 

W     1909  *Atterbury,